Passing for Underhill
by gythia
Summary: What happened to the Ring of Saruman?
1. Chapter 1

Passing for Underhill

Standard disclaimer: This is a fanfic. Characters: ain't mine. World: ain't mine neither. Mistakes: Mine, all mine.

Shire Reckoning dates:

1419 Wedding of Aragorn and Arwen

1423 Birth of Frodo Gardner (son of Sam Gamgee)

1430 Birth of Faramir Took

1432 Merry becomes Master of Buckland

1434 Pippin becomes The Took and Thain.

1436 Aragorn rides north, meets his hobbit friends at the bridge, and then goes on to dwell for a while by Lake Evendim.

Date uncertain in cannon: birth of Eldarion. In this story, his birth year is 1423.

The stonemasons had certainly done a fine job building on the old foundations, and restoring the ruins of the city that was now renamed Undomelin. City and lake were both well named, Merry thought. Evening was a fine time to stand at the wall on the third storey of the palace, and view the stars twinkling over the water. There was no moon tonight, and it was quite dark. It was also growing rather chill. Even the stones beneath his feet were beginning to forget the warmth of the day, despite it being full summer.

A figure just Merry's height appeared beside him. The hood of the fellow's cloak was thrown back, and though it was too dark to see much of his face, Merry made out the shape of his ears, not as rounded as a Man's, nor yet as pointed as an elf's. There was only one other hobbit as tall as Merry, and that was his cousin and best friend Pippin. The Pippin-shape leaned out over the wall and dropped something.

"Hey," Merry slapped his cousin's arm. He paid no heed to the sudden heavy footfalls behind him. "There might be someone below. Have you left your sense in your mug?"

An odd sounding giggle escaped the Pippin-shape as the bootsteps reached him. Suddenly someone seized Merry's arms and picked him up bodily. "Ai! Put me down!" Merry cried out, struggling uselessly. "Who's there? Pippin, help!"

But no help was forthcoming from the small cloaked form. Merry was carried across the rooftop open space and into the smallish structure, but whoever had captured him did not turn for the deserted throne room, but down the stairs. Merry caught a glimpse of his assailant when the man shifted his grip to pick up a torch from the stairwell before entering the basement. Even in the dim light, there was no mistaking the uniform he had seen Pippin wear on so many occasions over the years: the White Tree embroidered onto a black tunic over chain mail. It was one of the palace guards. Merry was no nonplussed that he did not think of trying to take advantage of the single armed grip to try to escape.

This part of the palace was still under renovation, and there was nothing down here but the wine cellar and a lot of empty, dusty, damp rooms. Merry was tossed into one such room. He jumped up and ran for the door, but it closed and locked with a snick. Merry tried to force it open, but it wouldn't budge.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Merry called through the door. There was no answer. A little dim torchlight came through the crack under the door, but otherwise the underground room was pitch dark. Merry explored the little room by feel, slowly and carefully, with rising trepidation. There were no other doors. The room was not entirely empty, though. There were metal things in the darkness. Merry thought he recognized the shape of a bed, although there was no mattress or other bedding. There were several buckets, and a rod, and some small items on the floor that he could not identify. Perhaps this was some sort of store room? No, he decided, this detritus must be left over from the original palace, because rust came off on his hand whenever he touched any of the metal objects. He knew it was rust, not just dust, because it smelled like wet iron. The scent reminded him of the war. He shivered and pulled his elven-cloak closer about him.

"Don't panic," he told himself. "Pippin will get help. Someone's bound to find me soon. I'm still in the palace, it's not that big a place to search."

Merry continued feeling around the room, and his hand touched a heavy chain. He followed its length and discovered it ended it a metal cylinder. So did the other end. It was a set of manacles. "Oh no! I'm in the dungeon!"

Time passed, and no one came for him. Merry was far too wound up in knots to sleep. Unlike during his captivity by the orcs, he did not have any lembas in his pocket, and soon he was hungry as well as tired, cold, scared, and confused. He was also thirsty and had a headache.

He was unsure whether it was it morning when the door opened again, but he rushed the two guards and wished he had his sword. One of the Men picked him up and the other one came behind with the torch. Merry tried to fight, but unarmed he was no match for a soldier of Gondor. "Let me go! Don't you know who I am?" He was carried all the way up to the top level, and into the throne room.

He stopped struggling when he saw Aragorn on the high seat. A crowd of Aragorn's courtiers filled up the small throne room of the north kingdom. Aragorn's jaw dropped when he saw his soldiers carry in Merry. "What is this?" asked the King.

There was another soldier—the one from last night?—standing before the throne. This soldier indicated Merry and said, "He is the one."

"Set him down," commanded Aragorn.

When the soldier put Merry down, the hobbit ran over to Aragorn. "Thank goodness you're here! I was afraid there was some sort of coup going on. Where is Pippin? Why didn't anyone come to help me? Did they get him too? Are other people missing? Has anyone been assassinated in the night?"

"Calm down, Merry," Aragorn said. "I will sort it all out. I saw Pippin this morning, and he was fine."

"But then, why didn't he bring help to rescue me?" Merry asked. "He saw me taken."

"No one knew where you were, Merry. Certainly Pippin did not, he asked why you were not at breakfast."

"Because these rude Men carried me off right in front of him!" Merry exclaimed indignantly. He turned to look at the three soldiers. "And where was my breakfast, I wonder? The Uruk-hai provided food to their captives, poor fare but no worse than their own rations. The soldiery of Gondor could learn a thing or two about the proper treatment of prisoners from the orcs."

One of the soldiers looked angered at this, but did nothing.

"Peace, Merry," said Aragorn. "I apologize on behalf of my men. I will make certain they know better in the future. Now, tell me exactly what happened last night."

"One of your men attacked me and locked me in the dungeon and didn't give me any food or water or light or blankets, that's what!" Merry's fear had dissipated, and now it was replaced by ire. "And nobody told me what was going on! I was afraid when they carried me up here I would find someone else sitting there and all my friends slaughtered in their beds."

"Before the soldier arrested you. What happened before that?"

Merry shrugged. "I watched the sunset and looked at the lake a while. Then Pippin came out and dropped a rock over the wall onto the road. I gave him a whap and accused him of being drunk. He's the Thain now, he's far too old to be getting up to stupid mischief. He didn't have a chance to respond before the soldier grabbed me."

Aragorn sighed and massaged his face. "Are you sure it was Pippin?" he asked.

"Who else could it have been?" Merry replied. "My height, slightly pointy ears, acting like a fool of a Took. How many people does that describe?"

"Two, unfortunately," said Aragorn. "This is all clearly a misunderstanding. And I am not at all happy with the way my men treated you, nor with them waiting until my normal court hours to present their case," Aragorn said grimly, and eyed his soldiers. They looked suitably chastened. "I will be reviewing the procedures the guards are to follow. I brought only picked men with me from Gondor, and I thought I had finally convinced them that I am not in fact Denethor. They are not to assume that I want things done the way he did them."

"But—what about Pippin?" Merry asked.

"Pippin wasn't there," said Aragorn. "It was Eldarion. The soldiers accused you of assaulting the Crown Prince."

"Oh."

"And they left out the part about him dropping stones from a height onto the public roadway. Nor did my son see fit to explain what he was doing just before the so called attack." Aragorn turned and made a crowd-parting gesture, and his courtiers drew aside to reveal the boy. In the light of day, he did not really look much like Pippin. Aside from his shoes, though, he still seemed remarkably hobbit-like. "You, young man, are confined to your room until tomorrow. Go."

The boy pouted, but didn't argue as he rose and left.

"You, soldier, have made a report so incomplete as to be nearly falsified. Consider yourself warned. Another such lapse and you will be reduced in rank to private, so that you may learn your duties properly. Go." All three of the soldiers left.

"And Merry, of course, you are free. I regret that you spent even one night in the dungeon. Especially in such a state of apprehension. In fact, I was not aware that I had a dungeon. If you would, join me for lunch out on the terrace." His gaze rose to address the entire assembly. "Court is over for the day." And to a servant: "Have the meal brought up." And back to Merry again: "Sit beside me and we will speak."

"Gladly," Merry said.

The court walked outside and found seats around the table. All the hobbits were there, including Pippin and Sam and their wives and children. Merry gave Pippin a heartfelt squeeze before sitting down and tucking into the provender. "What was that about?" Pippin asked. Aragorn explained what had happened to the wide-eyed hobbitry.

At the repast, there was very little speech from Merry until Merry had quite made up for his skipped breakfast. After about plate number seven, Merry relaxed and merely nibbled, filling up the corners.

"He really could pass for a hobbit," Merry mused. "Even in the daylight."

"He could," Pippin agreed. "He really could. Well, if he wrapped up his feet as if there were something wrong with them, anyway. The half elf ears are very much like hobbit ears. Say," said Pippin, "do you suppose—when he's done being kept in his room, that is—that we might test that notion?"

"What do you mean?" asked Aragorn.

"Well, I know you said you'd made a law that the Big People aren't to come into the Shire. I certainly understand the reason for it. There are graves and ruined places still, from the Troubles. And I know you said you wouldn't make one law for yourself and another for everyone else, and I can certainly understand that too, despite the temptation to say to darkness with that and come visit us anyway. But Eldarion isn't Big People yet. And anyway elves still pass through the Shire."

"That's true," said Sam. "I've seen them on the Road. The way to the Havens still goes through Hobbiton, and nobody had better think of turning them back."

"Right," said Pippin. "And if there's one sort of lore that we hobbits go in for, it's geneology, right Sam?"

"Right enough. What are you getting at, Mr. Pippin?"

"Well. Arwen is three quarters elf. That makes Eldarion three eighths elf on his mother's side, and a teeny little bit elf on his father's side. That's close enough for me, and as the Thain of the Shire I officially declare that as long as he's short enough to pass and won't cause a stir, Eldarion is welcome in the Shire."

Merry toyed with a pastry. "Not in Buckland he's not," he growled.

Aragorn said, "I have not given my permission yet. And I am not inclined to do so without considerable further thought. Especially after his display of irresponsibility, last night and today. He knew perfectly well where Merry was all this time, and said nothing, though he assuredly heard you ask after him. But your reasoning is sound, Pippin. Eldarion is not an elf. He is mortal, and cannot ever change, any more than could the second King of Numenor, the son of Elros Halfelven. But even reckoned as a son of Men, he is not a man yet."

Pippin grinned. "There's plenty of time for thought, as I intend to enjoy your table many times before heading home. And Merry, I know you're still upset, but really, you and I have certainly gotten into our share of mischief. We ran completely wild, in fact, for a while there. And most of it was your idea, if I recall."

"My perspective has changed since then," Merry said. "It's called adulthood."

Sam put in, "Oh, but I would dearly love to be able to show Bag End to Strider. Since I can't, hosting his son is the next best thing." Sam exchanged a look with Rosie, down the table. "I'd show him the mallorn tree. And a real hobbit hole, they're quite different from those scaled down hobbit rooms in the inn at Bree."

"Maybe," Aragorn said. "My law is not the only issue."

"Eldarion really does look like a hobbit. Mr. Pippin's right, I think he could pass. You know who he looks like? Well, he doesn't really look like him, as far as a painter would do his portrait, I guess, wrong color eyes for starters, but the intensity is the same. For all you say your son's no elf, Strider, he still feels a bit elvish, if you understand me. He reminds me of Frodo."

"Oh, Sam," Pippin said, reaching across the table to touch his arm. He could not think of any other words to say after that, so he just gave the arm a couple of pats then busied himself with a berry tart.

"Oh please," said Merry. "Frodo wouldn't've—well, no, I'm wrong. I didn't know Frodo as a teenager, but knowing he lived in Brandy Hall after his parents died, and before Bilbo adopted him, and knowing that means any discipline to be handed out would have come from my father, he probably would have left someone in a dungeon to avoid getting in trouble himself. Any sane being would."

"So no more hard feelings?" Pippin asked. "We can hardly bring him back with us if one member of the party hankers for vengeance."

"No vengeance-hankering here," Merry said. "But somebody had better take him in hand if you really plan to take him somewhere without his parents."

"I will," said Sam.

"Oh, great," Merry said. "You just said he reminds you of Frodo. You'll spoil him rotten."

"I've got a son named Frodo, you'll remember," said Sam. "His name never stopped me from giving him a good smack when he needs one."

"There will be no smacking," Aragorn declared. "Arwen and I are raising Eldarion in the elven way. As Elrond raised us."

"Not to worry," said Pippin. "I've saved every response to those anxious letters I wrote to you for advice when little Faramir was born. I know how to do things your way."

"What," said Sam, "you never spank Faramir-lad?"

"Not for my life," Pippin replied. "There was a reason that Merry and I capered like a pair of madmen at Saradoc's funeral. We were not drunk at all, as it happened. I intend to be a different sort."

Merry blushed and picked at his food.

"You were sober?" Sam gasped.

"Ask no more now, Sam, there are children present." Pippin said.

Sam nodded. He filed his questions away for later, for some less public spot, preferably when Merry and Pippin WERE drunk. He could always get them going when they were in their cups.

Aragorn, who had seen Pippin's body when he healed him after the war, also flushed and looked away.

End of Chapter One


	2. Chapter 2

Passing for Underhill Chapter 2

Eldarion's stay in his room had not subdued him. Every time Pippin looked over at the childrens' table, keeping an eye on his six year old son Faramir, who kept trying to introduce five year old Goldilocks Gamgee to the amphibian family of the lake's wildlife, Pippin noticed Eldarion jittering like a faunt on a brother's birthday.

Pippin recognized that phenomenon all too well from young Faramir: time spent cooped up inside as a punishment caused all the dammed-up mischief to burst forth like the river Isen when finally released. That was the downside to raising a boy elven-style. But, Pippin reflected, as frustrating as it was to manage those floods of boyish energy, he was proud of his promise to himself that little Faramir Took would reach his majority unscarred. Pippin thought he would go mad if he ever saw the same look of fear in little Faramir's eyes as his namesake had when he looked at his father. He realized what words he had just thought, and turned back to his breakfast sausages with a snort of irony. Go mad, indeed.

Breakfasts and lunches in the northern palace tended to the informal, so when the King and Queen rose and went inside, it did not mean that everyone had to follow them, and most of the hobbits stayed at the table. It was, however, the signal that everyone could go if they wished, and Eldarion sprang away like a deer. Even from outside, they could hear him bounding down the stairs.

The hobbits were just finishing up and letting the servants clear away the platters when the King, trailed by his court, wandered back out onto the terrace. On fine days he was in the habit of holding court in the courtyard in Minas Tirith, and was keeping up the custom at his newly rebuilt summer palace here in the north. The terrace was much smaller than the court of the fountain, but then his throne room here was also much smaller than the throne room in Minas Tirith. That suited Aragorn; it was a good excuse to leave most of the hangers-on behind in Gondor.

Kingly business took up a great deal of Aragorn's time, but he dismissed his court when Eldarion came running back up the stairs crying. The princeling flew to his mother. Arwen folded her arms around him, and Aragorn waved off his courtiers, a gesture they correctly interpreted as an order to disperse. The hobbits did not draw off with the Big Folk, however.

"What is it?" Aragorn asked softly.

Eldarion's reply was muffled, due to the boy's face being buried in pearl-studded, mother-scented velvet. Arwen asked the child, "Were the other boys teasing you again?"

Eldarion pulled back and wiped his face. "Can we make a law against the word 'shorty'? Please? Throw 'em in the dungeon."

"The word, or the boys?" Arwen asked.

"Dungeons on the brain, Eldarion?" asked Aragorn. "I'd take you down to the basement and show you what you are so fond of, if I had not just looked at it myself yesterday. You're far too young to find out what some of those things are. Perhaps after the workmen have melted down the offending ironmongery, as I ordered. I had no idea such things were practiced in the old north kingdom. Doubtless they date from the declining years."

"You're not short," broke in Sam. "You're taller than me."

Eldarion chuckled, "You're a hobbit."

"Yes!" exclaimed Pippin. "You look like a hobbit, do you know? Merry mistook you for me in the dark. And I'm the tallest hobbit in the Shire."

"Are not," said Merry.

"Alright, tied for tallest," allowed Pippin. "Though he doesn't really look like me, you know."

"Same height."

"I'm taller."

"Are not. He's eye level with me, which means he's the same height as you, because you are not taller than me."

By this time Eldarion had forgotten his teasing by the other children, and was giggling at Merry and Pippin's banter.

"I'm the tall one," claimed Pippin.

"Eldarion, go stand back to back with Pippin and show us you're as tall as he is."

Eldarion laughed and bounced over to Pippin. He whirled around and jumped backwards against Pippin with gusto. Pippin winced, but held himself upright.

Aragorn noticed the brief expression of pain flicker over Pippin's face, and thought, Still? Again? I must find out about this, later.

Merry picked up a tray and a plum from the table. "Now hold still, you two," he commanded, placing the tray across both their heads. He set the plum in the middle of the tray and backed off slowly, waiting to see if it would roll. It stayed put.

"There. Perfect. You two are exactly the same height."

"Good," said Pippin. Then he snatched the plum, and ducked, letting the tray fall. "Mine!" He popped the whole fruit is his mouth, chomped down, and spat out the pit. The tray clattered on the stone.

"You had better not do any more growing this month or you'll never pass," commented Sam. "One more inch and you won't look like a hobbit anymore. Mr. Pippin and Mr. Merry barely look like hobbits themselves, anymore."

Eldarion laughed. "If this is a conspiracy to make me feel better about being a foot shorter than any other thirteen year old in Gondor or Arnor, I have to say it worked."

"I'm thirteen," said Frodo Gardner, not quite three feet tall.

Arwen said, "Eldarion, sweetums, you know your elven heritage makes you grow more slowly than those of pure edain descent. You'll appreciate it someday."

"When?" he asked, "When Guilin and Neldordil and everybody I know dies of old age? Somehow I don't think I'm going to enjoy it nearly as much as everybody seems to think I will. That is what you meant, isn't it?"

"O child…" Arwen trailed off.

Merry sneezed loudly into the silence.

Aragorn cleared his throat. "Back to the subject of passing as a hobbit. I have made up my mind, and I have decided to allow Eldarion to visit the Shire in disguise."

"Really?!" Eldarion jumped up and down in his excitement, all thoughts of mortality put aside.

"Really. If you can behave yourself, that is. You will have to pass as an adult, after all."

"I'll be good I'll be really good I'll be really really really really good!"

"See that you do."

Pippin, still standing close, winked at the boy and whispered, "Don't worry, you'll be passing as an adult HOBBIT. Not one of those stuffy courtiers of your father's."

Eldarion grinned.

Merry sneezed again.

"Be off now," Aragorn told his son. "Go expend some of that youthful exuberance."

Eldarion raced off, back down the stairs and out to the lake.

Merry, sneezing and coughing, retreated to the first floor and the room he shared with Estella, nee Bolger. His wife followed him after a few minutes, accompanied by a servant bearing tea.

"Just set the tray down on the nightstand," Estella directed. When the tall woman had gone, Estella made Merry sit down on the featherbed and drink tea. She clucked, "I do hope that doesn't turn into a nasty cold. A souvenir from the basement, no doubt. What a terrible night you must have had."

Merry sneezed again. "I'm not ashamed to say I was frightened. But 'terrible' is a little strong. Just one more adventure, after all, and hardly the scariest."

"Is that what your adventures were really like? You tell the tales like old Bilbo did, and you make them sound like fun."

"Sometimes I did have fun. Did I tell you about finding the barrels of pipeweed?"

Estella smiled. "Many times."

"What you need is about a dozen children to fuss over, like Rosie has."

"One would suffice," Estella said quietly, her smile fading.

"I'm sorry."

"I know. You've certainly gone to great lengths to try to remedy the situation. I can't fault your determination to try."

"Sometimes…"

"What?"

"Sometimes I think it's just as well. I mean, me, a father?"

Estella kissed his brow. "I think you would find you're not as ill equipped for parenthood as you fear. Do you suppose—no. It's not that time yet."

"What, you're not thinking of stealing one of Rosie's, are you? Not that she'd miss one right away, but I think she does count heads sometimes. Once a week at least."

Estella's mouth quirked and she took the teacup from him and tried to kiss him, but he pushed her away.

"Don't, I don't want you to catch my cold. Who would take care of me if you were sick, too?"

She chuckled. "Selfish hobbit."

"Entirely."

By day three, Merry's cold had turned into a fever. His friends and family checked on him often, and the servants kept him supplied with tea at all hours of the day and night, but he was irritated about missing out on the lakeshore picnics and boating expeditions. And his cough sounded bad.

Aragorn went herb-gathering and brewed an athelas leaf in a porcelain bowl. He held the bowl under Merry's face and directed him to inhale the steam. Then he dipped a cloth into the wholesome-smelling water and laved Merry's forehead. Merry was breathing easier when Aragorn was done.

"I shall visit you again later. If you are still feverish tomorrow, I shall treat you again." Aragorn left a small pile of athelas leaves on top of a bureau. When he checked on Merry just before bedtime, Merry's fever still had not broken. Aragorn said he would wait overnight, and if the fever did not improve, he would give him another treatment.

The next morning, while golden dawn light spilled in the window, there was a hesitant knock on the door. Estella answered it, spoke quietly with the visitor for a few minutes, and then admitted him. It was Eldarion.

"You have a visitor," Estella said. She looked slightly amused.

"I heard you were ill," he said. "My father says you probably caught this cold from one of Sam's children, all the babies are sniffling, but I think maybe you would have thrown it off if not for the night in the dungeon. Nobody says so, but they all think it. I can see it in their eyes. I'm sorry and I want to help."

"Sure, you can help," Merry said, coughing.

Eldarion looked around and spotted the herbs. He picked up a leaf, and breathed on it. Then he poured the steaming water from the teapot into a basin, and cast the leaf into it. He closed his eyes and mumbled something.

At first Merry thought Eldarion's attempts to imitate his father were cute, but then he felt the fragrance of the athelas in the room turn from merely pleasant to something divine, as if a breeze had blown in from the Blessed Realm. The air tingled. It almost sparkled, and Merry turned wide eyes to Estella, silently asking if she felt it too. By her expression, no longer amused but awed, he knew she did.

Eldarion wetted a cloth in the athelas water and pressed it to Merry's brow. He closed his eyes again, and Merry felt a jolt go through him. Merry sat up abruptly and had a coughing fit, expelling sputum into a handkerchief. Then he said, "Hey. I feel better." He touched his head where Eldarion's power had flowed into him. "Estella. Feel. Do I feel hot?"

Merry's wife felt his face. "No." She turned to Eldarion in surprise. "I think you cured him."

Merry got out of bed, and did not sway. "The fever's gone." He took Eldarion's hand and kissed it. "You too have the hands of a healer. The hands of a king."

Eldarion grinned.

End of Chapter 2


	3. Chapter 3

Passing for Underhill Chapter Three

The shores of Lake Evendim were by turns muddy and rocky, the margins often lost in reeds and small still pools of water-lilies. But there was one real beach, and it was a short walk from the palace.

Aragorn had had no intention of actually holding court on the sand at the waterside, but wherever he happened to be, the court surely followed. He had just finished persuading an overly efficient servant that he truly did not require a pavilion, and sent an ambitious courtier off with the quip, "This is the wrong kind of angling for the lakeshore. I will entertain the notion of land grants when I hold court indoors, where the maps will not blow away."

Servants were still setting up chairs and tables and blankets. He himself was currently enthroned on the same simple, light, portable chair he used for breakfasting on the terrace. He and Arwen each had a goblet of clear water and a view of the lake. Or, they would have a view of the lake if the press of petitioners ever cleared out. When he had set out to come to the north kingdom, he knew there would be work involved, and he had no doubt that people who would not presume to approach him in Minas Tirith— his own people, Rangers of the North— might come to him here, and that had been fine with him. But he had not realized how many of the nobility of Gondor had no actually duties to do in the city, and could simply pick up and follow his vanguard. Perhaps he should find them things to do, and call the duties honors. Perhaps he should give them ALL land grants—far away.

A chorus of shrieks drew his attention. The screaming was notable because it sounded like it was coming from adults this time. The children, particularly the hobbit children, had already been laughing, splashing, and making high pitched noises for some time. "Clear out," Aragorn ordered the courtiers, "that I may see the cause of this." They got out of his way promptly.

"Ah," he sighed, relieved. The cries had come from a gaggle of men and women in colorful bathing costumes, who had just caught sight of a group of hobbits coming down to the lake from the changing tent. Hobbits swam in the nude.

The three pairs of hobbit husbands and wives laughed, kicked up sand, and frolicked out into the lake. Aragorn caught a flash of red amid the cream-pale skin and focused in: Pippin. Fresh scars. So he had been right about the meaning of that wince, a few days ago. He had been trying to think of a way to broach the subject, but had not come up with anything. And here, Pippin was unselfconsciously cavorting naked in front of everybody, welts and all. Aragorn realized he had been unwittingly thinking as if he were dealing with Faramir, who was still too embarrassed to bare himself even to a healer, after all these years.

Aragorn's thoughts suddenly turned in a different direction: three pairs? Indeed, there was Merry, splashing around in the boreal water. He should not even be out of bed yet, with the fever he had yesterday. Merry's laugh carried over the water as he sent sprays of water at his friends. There was no hint of sickness in his voice or appearance.

How had that happened? Aragorn knew he had not exerted that much power. He had barely raised any power at all; it was only a cold, after all, and Aragorn had insisted on treating Merry more to keep in practice than because Merry needed it. Aragorn hardly ever got a chance to act as a healer in a normal case, as he was usually only brought the hopeless ones.

Another scream, a child's this time, followed by boyish bellowing, caused the herd of hobbit adults to migrate over to their children in the shallow water. The childless pair hung back a little.

Sam's oldest son, Frodo Gardner, was standing in the shallows with his little sister Goldilocks wrapped around his leg. She was cheering and nyah-nyahing although there were tears on her face. Her near-agemate Faramir Took was standing in front of them, crying hysterically.

"Hoi!" called Sam, galumphing to a halt in knee-deep water. "What's all this, then?"

"I hate frogs!" exclaimed Goldilocks.

"Daddyyyyy!" cried little Faramir, holding out his arms to be picked up. Pippin picked up the crying child, but Faramir-lad gasped and squirmed when Pippin tried to make a seat for him on his arm, so Pippin set him back down.

"What happened?" demanded Rosie, addressing the older boy.

"Just protecting my sister," said little Frodo.

"He hit me!" Faramir-lad pointed.

"Did you?" asked all four the of the trio's parents together.

"Goldilocks said he squeezed a frog out on her head."

"Did you?" asked Diamond.

"I wouldn't hurt a frog!" Faramir protested.

"Enough!" grated Sam. "Start from the beginning. Who did what first?"

Goldilocks started bawling. Rosie crouched down in the water and smoothed her daughter's hair. "Goldie, honey, what happened?"

"H-he chased me with a frog and put it on my head and it melted all over me!"

"It did not melt!" protested little Faramir. "It peed. It was scared of you."

"That's FROG PEE on her head?" growled Sam.

"Here, hon." Rosie tilted Goldilocks into the water and rinsed her hair.

"That wasn't very nice, Faramir-lad," said Pippin. A momentary gleam of amusement in his eye gave way to irritation as he thought out loud, "If I have to bring you to your room right now, that means I have to leave too." Little Faramir was six, far too young to be sent back to the palace by himself.

"Then what happened?" asked Diamond.

"Then Goldilocks called for her brother and told him I squeezed the frog, but I didn't! I would never hurt a poor little froggie! And then he hit me."

"Did you?" Sam asked his son.

"Yes. He need whacking so I whacked him."

Pippin had such murder in his eye that Sam actually put out an arm to hold him back, although he had not taken a step. Sam continued to hold a barrier arm between Pippin and little Frodo as Sam asked his son, "So you think you're old enough to dole out spankings, do you?"

"Why not? Elanor does. She's only two years older than me."

"There are rules, Frodo-lad. One of them is, you never punish someone in public. You know that, don't you? You've always had privacy, haven't you?"

"I thought that was so nobody would see you, but we're all already naked!"

"Well now you know different," said Sam.

"Sam…" Pippin husked. He put a hand on Sam's arm as if getting ready to push it aside.

"I'm getting to that, Mr. Pippin. Now, Frodo-lad, there's another rule, and that is, we might live in a big smial like gentlehobbits but we're not, and the likes of us don't punish the children of gentlefolk. It isn't our place. Do you understand?"

Little Frodo looked down, subdued now. "Yes," he pouted.

"Whenever you think a young gentlehobbit like little Faramir here needs a thrashing, you bring him to his parents, instead of doing it yourself, understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Run along now."

Both of Sam's children dashed off through the water.

"Run along? That's it?" Pippin snarled.

"What do you want me to do? Teach him how wrong it is to smack somebody by hauling him off to the changing tent and smacking him?"

Pippin closed his eyes for a moment. He exhaled, then opened them again, staring off into space instead of meeting Sam's eyes. "No, of course not."

Diamond gently peeled Pippin's hand off of Sam's arm and pulled her husband back away from Sam. "This is over," she whispered.

Pippin allowed himself to be turned around and towed back toward the deeper water, but then his gaze sharpened as he saw Merry and Estella, and he halted. Merry had sat down on the lake bottom, obscuring his lower half from view. He was staring at the drama before him, transfixed. Merry's face was filled with some odd emotion halfway between horror and glee.

"Watching," Pippin whispered. He knew exactly when Merry must have had that reaction, too; when Frodo-lad's words had conjured up the image that had infuriated Pippin: older naked boy spanking younger naked boy.

Pippin's gaze locked with Merry's for a moment. Pippin surged out of Diamond's guiding hands for one berserk instant, and then stopped as he saw fear and shame and desperation chase each other over his cousin's face. Merry blinked, mouthed something unreadable, and then a shock of hope crossed his visage. He grabbed Estella's hand, pulled her off her feet, and swam with her for the deepest part of the lake.

"What was that all about?" Diamond asked, coming up beside Pippin.

Pippin cleared his throat. "I suspect they are about to attempt to make us a little cousin."

"I know THAT. I'd recognize that look of urgent hope on anybody's face. I meant you. You looked like you were about to make us a big dead cousin."

Pippin walked into the deeper water and floated. His wife followed suit. "I think—" Pippin paused a long time, considering his answer. Did he really think that Merry had been looking at little Faramir the way he looked at Pippin? No. He had reacted to a word-picture, spoken by an entirely different (and much older) child, the same mental image to which Pippin had reacted. His mental image had not been Frodo-lad and Faramir-lad but Merry and Pippin, and he was quite sure Merry's mental image had been the same. And he never blamed Merry for what Saradoc had done to them, ever. Even though each one those few people to whom he had spoken of this, including Diamond and even Merry himself, had been left scratching their heads as to why. Pippin could not understand his own emotions logically either; perhaps forgiveness was simply a bad habit of his.

Pippin floated in the glacial water of Lake Evendim, looking up at the clear blue sky of a northern summer. He let his temper run out into the cold, lapping lake. "I think I hope they have a daughter."

"Alright, be that way," said Diamond.

"My way is an excellent way," Pippin smirked. "Pippin Way, that's what we ought to call that little lane that runs to the pond out behind the Great Smials."

Diamond floated up underneath him and pulled his shoulders into her ample bosom. They floated together, looking up at the sky. "And where is Diamond Way to be? The main road from Great Smials to the Shire, perhaps?"

Pippin smiled. "Diamond Way is wherever and whenever you wish it to be, my love."

"Good answer," said Diamond, and kissed his neck.

End of Chapter Three


	4. Chapter 4

Passing for Underhill Chapter Four

Lunch was served as a picnic by the lakeshore. All the hobbits dressed for it, which made it much less awkward to hold conversations with them, although the hobbits did not do much talking until after about the third or fourth course.

Replete, the hobbits rested after lunch, except for a few of the children who could not wait to return to the water. Aragorn did not want to miss his chance to speak discreetly to Pippin, before the hobbit went swimming again. He wondered briefly how to arrange a private talk, then thought, to darkness with that, I'm the King, and simply ordered everyone else to keep back. "I am here to relax," he said, "and there will be no court today."

So now damp-haired Pippin was seated next to him, each with a chalice of cider to his hand. "I saw," Aragorn said simply.

"Saw what?"

"You. Did you not tell me once that other than the misunderstanding in the early days of my reign, such things belonged to your past?"

"Such what things? Oh. That. That was, um, an attempt to help with a little problem. Not anything you can cure, I'm afraid. Nothing to be done." Pippin blushed scarlet.

"Will you not speak plainer? I ask as both a friend and a healer."

"It's not my secret to tell," Pippin replied.

"Merry's?" Aragorn hazarded. At Pippin's reluctant nod, Aragorn continued, "So he does still beat you."

"You make it sound— Look, Strider, I'm not a damsel in distress, alright? I know you must be going mad with boredom, locked in circles of defenses, inside walls of castles and soldiers, with no deeds to do and never allowed to be truly alone. But please don't set your mind on me as a rescue object. I don't need saving. I killed a troll once, you know."

"I know. I remember what you looked like when they poured you out onto the healing platform after the battle. But courage in combat is one thing, and courage to defy those who hold power over you is another."

Pippin snorted. "And who in all the history of Minas Tirith ever defied Lord Denethor? Me. And Gandalf. But Maiar do as they please."

"Mm. But by then Denethor had run mad."

"Leave it alone, Aragorn. I'm perfectly capable of standing up for myself."

"Your proofs all date from the war. The marks against you look merely weeks old, to my healer's eye."

"In case you hadn't noticed, I'm standing up to YOU. Right now. My King."

Aragorn made a letting-go gesture with one hand. "I concede the match. But I still wish to know what transpires between my friends."

"Don't ask Merry, please, Strider. It's an embarrassing problem, and it's all in his head, so there's nothing you can do about it. You can't cure him."

"Still…"

"Really, you can't help. Please find another project."

"I cannot imagine what you are hinting about, but if it is some sort of mental hygiene puzzle, it is possible I may be able to help. Many ills that lesser healers term a matter of spirit because they cannot determine a cause, yield in the end to powers such as mine. For I have more than herbcraft, I have the heritage from afar of Melian, and like Elrond and others of her descendants, I have agency even over spiritual ailments. It is a matter of blood, you see. Arwen could be a greater healer than I, if ever she chose to learn to use the light within her for that purpose. But it requires a certain nature to pour one's own power into another."

Pippin jolted forward at those words, a look of enlightenment on his face. "You aren't prodding me about this because you want to rescue me, are you? You just want me to tell you the story. Because you're like me. You do understand after all."

Aragorn sighed. "More than you know. Yes, I'm like you, in a way. Not precisely the same. You and Merry have known each other all your life. You grew up following the lead of your older cousin, as is only natural. I grew up in total isolation from my own kind, except for my mother, and did not meet another child during my entire fosterage. So I did not develop as pure a yielding nature as did you. But the essential principal is the same; the older partner leads, the younger follows."

"Good heavens. Arwen is your top."

"Arwen is my goddess."

Sounds of laughter and splashing filled the lull in the conversation. Men and women in peacock-bright raiment were returning to the water, along with happy naked frolicking hobbits.

"So will you tell me the tale?"

"The story belongs to Merry. But I'll let him know that I think you would understand. And now I should like to swim again, if you'll excuse me."

"Go." Aragorn waved a dismissive hand.

On the other side of the beach, the two thirteen-year-olds, Eldarion and Frodo Gardner, were sitting in an old, gnarled plum tree that hung out over the water. The hobbit was picking the fruits and casting the pits into the lake, but Eldarion had his back to the trunk and his face was gray.

"Want a plum?" asked little Frodo.

"No thank you. I do not feel well."

"I hope you aren't catching that cold that Master Brandybuck had."

"I am not. The symptoms are different. I have no cough, sneezing, or fever, I simply feel a general malaise."

"What's that?"

"It means I do not feel well."

"Ah." The hobbit lad ate another fruit and tried to skip the pit like a stone, but it sank on impact.

"I do not understand it. I have healed before. Father lets me practice on mild cases, sometimes. I have never felt this drained. It was only a cold! The pain should have passed in minutes."

"You mean it hurts you to heal someone?"

"Of course it does. That is the how an empath's gift works."

"Then why would anyone do it?"

"Because."

Frodo-lad threw one of the pits at Eldarion. "That's no answer."

"To not heal is worse. To sense another's pain and not try to take it away from him, it's just against our nature. Valar, I feel weak. There must have been something seriously wrong with Merry."

That night, as Merry and Estella changed in their rooms into nightshirt and nightgown, Merry suddenly gasped and looked down at himself. "Estella," he whispered, "look."

"Again? Years of nothing, and now twice in one day!"

"Well don't just stand there, darling, we don't want to waste it!"

Estella grinned, pulled her nightgown back off and hopped into bed. "Coming, Merry?"

"I plan on it!" He laughed and joined her. "One little Brandybuck arriving next year!"

"At this rate, maybe we'll have twins!"

The next day, Merry bounded out to the breakfast table on the terrace, crackling with energy. He capered up to Eldarion, seized his hand and kissed it. "Thank you, thank you, thank you! You're a miracle worker!"

The boy raised bleary eyes to his patient. "Of what exactly did I heal you?"

Merry laughed. "Ask me again in ten years." He fairly skipped over to his usual place at the head table. Before he sat down, he turned and shouted, "I think we'll call you Mr. Underhill, when you visit the Shire. Mr. Underhill the Traveling Miracle Worker."

End of Chapter Four


	5. Chapter 5

Passing for Underhill Chapter Five

Though hobbits rarely said much in the first half of a meal, all through breakfast Merry and Estella kept up a running dialog on the subject of baby names. Merry tried to come up with a new Brandybuck-style boy-name by reciting his paternal line and then adding random nonsense syllables to the essential –ac or –oc element, all in a rapid singsong like an auctioneer: "Gormadoc, Madoc, Marmadoc, Gorbadoc, Rorimac, Saradoc, Meriadoc. Manadoc, Minadac, Goridac, Robiadoc, Monadoc—"

"Not Monadoc," said Estella. "His nickname would be Moany."

"Minasac, Merimac, no that's been used," Merry corrected himself. He had an uncle named Merimac. "Geridoc—"

"Wait! That's it," said Estella. "Gerry would be a great nickname."

"Perfect!" He kissed her enthusiastically, surprising an 'mpf!' of protest from his wife. "Mm, what is that, peach cobbler? I'll have some too."

"I think you just did, you bandit."

"I'll bandit you," Merry said, doing something under the table that provoked a loud giggle from his wife.

"Break it up, you two," commanded Diamond, leaning around Pippin. "You're in public."

"I'm just so happy!" Merry said.

"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, dear," countered Diamond. "You went on a spree last time too, painting all that old baby furniture. Best to wait 'til you know you've 'caught', as it were. I know, believe me, Pip and I had a lot of disappointments before we finally got little Faramir."

"This time it's different," said Merry. "I can feel life running through me, ramifying from every pore, I can almost see little tiny stars filling my every breath. I feel—I feel…" Merry realized the word he was looking for was 'potent', but he was embarrassed to say it.

"All that thanks to a fight over a frog?" asked Pippin.

"No. Thanks to Eldarion."

"Merry!" Pippin shrilled, aghast, with a sideways glance at Aragorn.

"Not like THAT! Get your mind out of your ass." Merry elbowed Pippin in the ribs, hard.

"Language!" scolded Diamond.

"He healed me."

"I thought you said it was all in your head," said Pippin. "Trained reactions, not a curable disease."

"I guess I was wrong. So was that doctor we consulted, Renigald Boffin, when I finally got desperate enough to ask for help."

"Huh."

"I'm going to call him Miracle Worker. What do you think of Mr. Underhill the Traveling Miracle Worker, as an alias?"

"Underhill?" Sam asked, finally joining the conversation.

"Well, why not? It's a common enough name. And you're the one who said he reminded you of Frodo."

"I ain't disagreeing, Mr. Merry. Only surprised. I take it this miracle turned around your opinion of Prince Eldarion pretty quick?"

"It did."

Down the tables, at the very last table after all the important adults at the head table, and less important adults at the middle table, was the children's table. After Merry skipped off to his usual seat, young Frodo Gardner leaned across the table and asked Eldarion, "Miracle Worker, is it? As nicknames go, that's a right good one. I'd keep it, if I were you."

"Perhaps I will. Every great lord needs a great eke-name. 'Twould be difficult to render in the elven tongue, though. There is no proper word for miracle. That which mortals call miraculous, is merely part of the landscape to elvenkind. Danaire? That is close, I think. I will ask Mother to help me translate it."

"It's a good start," said the hobbit child. "I've already started my own family name, too. I've gotten everybody to call me Frodo Gardner instead of Frodo Gamgee. And someday I'm going to be Mr. Gardner, whatever dad says. I'm going to be a gentlehobbit when I grow up. We've already got Bag End and all old Mr. Frodo's wealth. And no small share of his fame too, as I see it, though the legacy of Mad Baggins—that's old Mr. Bilbo—isn't always one as I'd want to live up to, if you take my meaning. And I've got me a proper gentlehobbit's family name now, so all I need is to convince the rest of the Shire that I'm worthy of what I've got. And I intend to." Frodo-lad punctuated this speech with a decisive bite of cinnamon bun.

"To be worthy is a worthy goal," proclaimed Eldarion. "I hope that I shall live up to the name bestowed upon me."

"You know what? One thing I might do, to earn that respect, is to learn summat from you. Teach me to talk like you."

"What?"

"I want to talk like a refined gentleman."

"Certainly. I would be happy to do so. And you may instruct me on how to pass for a hobbit."

"It's a deal." Frodo-lad wiped off the sticky glaze and extended his hand across the table. They shook on it.

It was several weeks later, when the hobbits were making ready to return to the Shire, that Eldarion tried out his new hobbit lore on the adult hobbits. He found them in the common room of the hobbit suite, packing.

He demonstrated his familiarity with such things as mathoms and smials, the names of the months and the most important families, various brands of pipe-weed, and Shire place-names.

"Not bad," said Merry. "But if you're posing as a Traveling Miracle Worker from outside the Shire, there's no need to pretend to know the geography and geneology of the Shire. Just those things any old hobbit would know, from wherever they hail."

"Oh. Well, let's just say I've learned those things in my journeys with you, then."

"Good idea," said Sam. "I must say my eldest son seems to have done a fine job telling you all about hobbit ways."

"There's only one gap in your knowledge," said Pippin.

"Oh? What's that?"

"Every hobbit knows at least a few drinking songs."

"Will you teach me some?"

"Of course I will! And naturally, drinking songs require drinking. Di, what say we broach a keg?"

"I'm game," replied Diamond. "But perhaps Eldarion is a little young for that?"

"He's supposed to pass for a grown hobbit," said Pippin.

"I think you had better ask the King and Queen first."

"Fine, ale for us, water for him, and we'll ask about it tomorrow. Now, what songs'll we teach him? None of the Shire-specific ones, of course; nothing mentioning the Green Dragon or any other Shire place or person. None of old Bilbo's rhyming. Something old and traditional, I think."

Diamond poked her head out the door of the hobbit suite to ask a waiting servant to bring drinks.

"It's odd, I never thought of it before, but all the oldest songs I can think of are Yuletide songs. Hmm. Let me think, what's good for the early fall? I know, Tom Barley! That's a good one. I'll sing it through once, so you can get a feel for the tune, then I'll start teaching you the lines. The plot goes like this: Tom Barley is a barleycorn. He gets cut down and made into beer. Then he grows back."

Merry commented, "I can hardly wait to see Aragorn's and Arwen's faces when they find out you've been teaching their thirteen-year-old son drinking songs."

End of Chapter Five


	6. Chapter 6

Passing for Underhill Chapter Six

Aragorn was pleased with himself. He had given much thought to the question of how to arrange a private conversation with Merry and Pippin before they left the city of Undomelin, without starting rumors by inviting them to his chambers, and without contributing to the reputation for capriciousness that simply ordering his courtiers to get back had done when he had the little chat with Pippin on the lakeshore, and without making Sam feel unduly excluded. It was that last point that had been vexing, until he thought of the perfect vehicle for this conversation: a boat. He and Merry and Pippin were fishing from a small boat on Lake Evendim.

Or, pretending to fish, in any case. "On the morrow," Aragorn began softly, "you leave for home. I will see you again at Bree when you bring Eldarion to meet the returning caravan on our way back to Gondor. But that will likely be a hectic time, and the inn at Bree is rather small for such a company. There will be little chance of private speech."

"I knew it," Pippin said. "I knew you couldn't leave it alone."

"They say curiosity kills a cat, but so far as I know it has never killed a king." Aragorn set down his fishing pole and drew up the sack hung over the side of the boat. He fished out three of the glass containers, cold from the glacier-fed lake. "Ingenious invention, these," he commented, passing two to his friends. "What do you hobbits call them again?" The three of them popped the caps on the thwarts of the boat.

"Bottles," said Pippin. "There was a powerful lot of machinery in the factory Saruman's men built where old Sandyman's Mill used to be. Most of it we melted down to make useful things, like nails and horseshoes and ploughshares. But Ted begged us to save some of it, saying he'd prove he'd known what he was doing when he stayed on to learn what-all was going on in there amid the stenches and the befouling of the Water. Certain pieces of the equipment he actually stood in front of and wouldn't let them be demolished. And I must say I misunderstood him. We all did. We all thought he was a fool, cleaning gears and wheels for the men where his father was the Miller and his own master."

"We were all wrong about Ted Sandyman," agreed Merry. "Whatever it is he does to his beer to make it foam like this, I forgive him. Even if it's some orcish recipe"

"Well, that's just it, Merry, it's not the recipe at all," Pippin said. "I asked him, you see. It wouldn't do to bring a tainted gift to our King, now would it? No, I went on a tour through the factory before I even thought about buying a cartload of beer to present to Aragorn. It's the bottling itself that gives the beer its head. The recipe is the very same one the Green Dragon uses."

Merry looked at his bottle dubiously. "This is Green Dragon?"

"Any beer would do that if it's bottled. In fact, Ted says all beer would do that if kegs were tapped like maple trees instead of being opened at the top of the barrel."

"That's insane."

"No, he's right, I've tried it."

There was a pause as the friends enjoyed their beers. Then the dignified King of Gondor and Arnor let out a BRRRAAAAAAP and he and the fisherhobbits all burst into laughter.

Aragorn returned to his lazy fishing, letting his line trail in the water as he regarded two hobbits looking back at him. In his softest voice, he asked, "Merry, has Pippin spoken to you about our conversation by the shore?"

Merry sighed. "Yes, the same day. But then you didn't ask about it, and I had hoped you'd forgotten. It's embarrassing, Strider."

"Despite what Pippin may think, I do not ask solely to satisfy my curiosity. I want to watch you two when the story is told, because that will tell me if I am seeing a pair of friends and cousins being who they are in goodfellowship, or whether one of you does in fact need to be rescued."

Pippin looked down and fiddled with his line.

"Alright," Merry said. "I know what that must have looked like, when Pippin went to swim in the lake and everyone could see. But Strider, you've got to understand, Pippin is the Thain of the Shire now. For the last two years. Technically that makes him my liege-lord. Although the Master of Buckland is a power in his own right, and if that weren't so, there probably wouldn't've been more than the first few of the whole messy Show in the first place, back when we were lads. Pippin told me once that he never let on what my father made us do because he was afraid his parents would protect him by locking him up in the Great Smials and never let him see me again."

"Now, there's no need to get into all that," Pippin muttered, blushing.

"Yes, there is, because Strider doesn't know the backstory, and he doesn't understand how the heads of the folklands relate to each other in the Shire. Why, the Shire must look like a positive anarchy from the perspective of Gondor."

"It does," agreed Aragorn. "No written laws—well, Rohan has no written laws, either, but there is no doubt from whom the law flows. But the Thain is not precisely a king, and the Mayor is not precisely a prime minister. The Master of Buckland, as I understand it, is essentially the lord of an independent principality within the Shire."

"That's about right," said Merry.

"Yes," Pippin agreed, grateful that the conversation had turned in this far less embarrassing direction. "So Merry as the Master of Buckland stands in relation to me as the Thain in approximately the same relationship that Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth stands in relation to you as King Elessar of Gondor and Arnor. Do you see how ridiculous it is to think Merry could be abusing his power over me? He doesn't have any."

"How much power does the Thainship give you over him?"

Pippin didn't answer. He pretended to be busy fishing, making little jerking motions with his line as if to make the bait wiggle enticingly.

"None at all," Merry answered for him, after a long pause. "That's the peculiar thing about Buckland. If I wanted to, I could hold it against the Thain's men, or against the Mayor's shirriffs. And the Tookland could be held against the rest of the Shire, too, and it was, during the Troubles. My father could have held Buckland against the ruffians if he had chosen to. I can't say he sided with them, exactly, or it would have been easy to unseat him before his death. As it happened I had to hold on a long darned time before I could rid Brandy Hall of his evils. Do you know what was the first thing I did, when I became Master of Buckland? Before the funeral, even. I went into his study and cleared out everything except the papers and burned it all."

"You what?" asked Pippin.

"I should have told you," Merry said. "But I was afraid to even bring it up. I thought at that point that we'd already put the past behind us forever. Anyway, I went out before dawn, because I didn't want to be interrupted. I dragged all the furniture outside and piled it into a bonfire. I opened the drawer—you know, THAT drawer. To make sure everything was still inside it. Then I poured lamp oil all over it, and all over the wooden furniture, and lit it on fire. I watched it for a while, then I went back inside and pulled down that damned hook from the ceiling. I had to get the ladder, and then a saw, because it was really braced up there good. Of course it had to be, and I already knew just grabbing it and jumping wouldn't bring it down, obviously. Or it would have come down the last time he put you up there, you were already full-grown, or as fully grown as you would have ever been if you hadn't drunk the ent draught. So I sawed through the bracing and dragged all the bracing out along with the hook and threw that on the fire too. But the bracing was part of the original tunneling. I actually caved the ceiling in. And do you know, Pippin, it was really irrational. The first thing I thought when I saw the hillside come pouring into the study was, Oh no, look what I've done, I'm going to get it now."

Pippin mumbled, "You didn't 'get it' on your own hide since I was ten."

"No, Pippin, you're wrong there. You weren't always with me when I got in trouble. Sometimes you were home, or visiting some other friend or relative. Later, when we were tweens, we were inseparable. When we weren't visiting your family together, we were visiting someone else together, or sleeping in barns and stealing our breakfast from farmers' fields while your family thought we were visiting mine. And sometimes we even visited Brandy Hall together, when I was sure my father would be out. But during the Show years, we were both still too young to wander at will, and most of the time we spent our nights under our own roofs."

"That's true," said Pippin. "So you got into trouble without me sometimes?"

"Sometimes."

"But—I thought the reason he started the Show in the first place was because he didn't want to touch you. I didn't quite understand back then. At the time I thought he was just being mean. But I understand now."

"That was the reason, I'm sure of it. And I understand too, now. Though I didn't at the time, either. At least, not at first. Eventually I came to understand all too well that physical discipline can be erotic. If I ever manage to sire a child, I'm going to follow your example. For me, the whole War of the Ring was worth fighting just so you and I could get out of the Shire and discover there are other ways to bring up children."

Pippin nodded. "Besides a few other unimportant effects, like saving Middle-earth."

Merry smiled briefly. "Have I ever told you how much I admire your courage in bucking convention to raise little Faramir elven-style? The rest of the Shire thinks you're looney, you know."

"Not everybody, I fancy. Some of the women of the best families have quietly asked me for advice on that subject in the last year or so, now that my boy is old enough to have manners and prove everybody wrong."

"Really?" Merry asked. "That's encouraging."

"Yes, maybe I'll start a fashion. Just like the fashion you and I started for long grey cloaks."

Merry snorted. "Well, why not? Lead by example, that's the way. Change the whole Shire from the gentry on down."

The boat rocked a little as Aragorn finished his beer and hauled up another few bottles from the bag in the cool water, and distributed them. "So what happened? What happened just before you hobbits met me on the Brandywine Bridge and came with me to Undomelin, I mean. Approximately one to two weeks before that, if I am any judge of scars. Which I am. Having seen an abundance, as both warrior and healer."

"Yes, I fancy you've seen plenty of scars," Merry said. "Alright, I'll tell you. At first it wasn't much of a problem. Well, it was, but I thought it was just nerves, you see, at first."

"At first what?" Aragorn asked.

Merry blushed scarlet. "When I was first married. The first, oh, couple of months, I thought I was just nervous. I covered pretty well, I think. I mean, I – Estella never—Anyway, after that then I thought maybe I just wasn't ready to be a father. And I wasn't, and I'm still not. The specter of Master Sara hangs over me still. But Estella's more than ready to be a mother, and in the last couple of years I really wanted to give her that, whether I'm ready or not. And I couldn't, well, perform."

Merry knocked back the rest of his beer and fidgeted with the fishing line. His audience was silent. Pippin gazed at the water, but Aragorn regarded Merry steadily.

"I tried everything I could think of. I even consulted Dr. Boffin. But he couldn't find anything physically wrong with me, and he said it must be a nervous complaint, as he put it. I said I already thought of nerves, and I had tried all kinds of ways to let go of tension, and nothing helped. But then he came right out and said that meant he thought it was a question of mind over matter, and that my problem was all in my mind."

Merry paused before continuing, looking out over the lake as a light breeze ruffled the water and his hair. "I suspected that maybe I was permanently fixed on the strap. Which I had burned. It was easy to get another one, though. I tried just having it around, in secret, under the pillow, when I tried to get Estella with child. And I did feel something, but it wasn't enough. So I finally came clean to Estella about the Show. She held me, and she said she finally understood why I was so leery of becoming a parent. But she said Pippin seemed to have done alright. Little Faramir was five by then. And we talked a long time, and I finally agreed that I could be a good father, like Pippin is, if I tried. And 'Stella and I agreed we'd raise our own children like Pippin is doing, without any violence. And we thought maybe now that we'd cleared the air, I'd be fine. But I wasn't. Months went by. We talked about our problem again. Estella herself suggested that if I really couldn't do it without a whip in my hand, maybe we should try it. Try it on her, she meant. And I did, heaven help me. It didn't work. And it scared us both so much I think I cried longer than she did. We didn't speak the next day. Not about that, or about anything. Just this uncomfortable silence. Then Estella asked me if there was any hope for us at all. If there was anything left to try. I said I didn't know, but if I thought of anything I'd tell her, even if it was frightening or embarrassing. And it was both, when I finally thought of it, but it was hope at last. It took me a day to work up to talking to Estella about it. And then it took me nearly a week to figure out how to ask Pippin."

Merry paused again. Pippin took up the story then. "And you can see Merry still has trouble talking about it. Which might be why he was a little vague on his plans, which made everything go wrong."

"I'm sorry, Pippin. I thought you were deliberately provoking me, trying to get me into the right mindset."

"Well I wasn't. And you should have told me Estella wasn't just going to be in the room, waiting for you to get it up and go at it."

"I should have. I know that. I was trying to cover her up with you, erase her from my vision so it would look just like the old Show."

"I rather imagined she was going to be watching. The Show did include a voyeur, after all."

"I couldn't put 'Stella in the role of my father! I would really never have been able to have sex with her then, even it the Show worked for me." There was a touch of indignation in Merry's voice.

Pippin looked down and away. Any wolf or mountain-ape would have recognized it as a gesture of submission.

Aragorn watched the interaction between them closely. Whatever it told him, he kept to himself. "So you asked Pippin to let you spank him, so that you could give Estella a child. And he consented."

"Yes," Merry said.

"See?" Pippin put in. "Nobody needs rescuing here."

"I take it that it did not work, since you called it a miracle when Eldarion healed you."

"No, it didn't work," said Merry. "Didn't work is an understatement. It was a nightmare. Like Pippin said, it all went wrong right from the beginning."

"Care to tell the tale? I already know what I need to know, but you may find that unburdening yourself will lighten your load."

Merry sighed. "Why not? I've already told you enough to embarrass me, what's the rest? In the Show, the first thing I usually did was have Pippin take off his clothes and then I would say, 'Lay down and stay down'. That meant he was to stay on the floor until I told him to get up. In the Show, if Pippin couldn't stay down by himself, my father would put him up instead, all the way up, hanging by the wrists from the ceiling. And he'd, well, do things, extra things, besides the tanning. That was the way it worked. Whenever Pippin didn't display obedience to me during the Show, my father took over. And then it was hideous. And, Pippin was never able to do his half, and that's how the Show turned sexual in the first place. Pippin and I would be dragged before him by someone or other who thought we had been naughty, my father would demand that I beat Pippin and then that Pippin beat me. But Pip could never do it. So then my father would do things to him. Eventually I started going right from Pippin's punishment to the extras, doing them myself, just so my father wouldn't end up doing it, because I could do less hurtful and less frightening things. And eventually that turned into sex, when I got older."

Merry set down his fishing gear and covered his face with his hands briefly. When he looked up, he said, "So in trying to recreate the Show, I had Pippin strip and led him to where I wanted him to be—where Estella was already on the floor-- and said the phrase. 'Lay down and stay down'. Only Pippin didn't lay down. He turned and gave me this incredulous look and said, 'On top of Estella?!' I didn't realize—This wasn't in my script, you see. I had said the phrase, and from that point on, Pippin was supposed to be lying belly down, taking whatever I gave him. That was how it worked. I got angry. I yelled, 'Down, dammit!' and slapped him in the face and kicked the back of his knee, and down he went. I got the strap and I was still mad. I said, 'You've forgotten how to obey, and I'm going to remind you.' When I came up with this plan, I had not meant to really beat him. I was just going to pink him up a little, in a playful sort of way. But something came over me when Pippin questioned my order. When I gave him the strap, I kept striking til he bled. Then I stopped, horrified at myself. And I realized I was feeling about as sexy as a tree stump. And then I tried to get back on track. I was so stubborn, so focused on my goal I never even thought about letting it go for that day and trying again some other time, if Pippin would ever let me again, after what happened. I had so exhausted myself that I had to catch my breath, and I noticed that Pippin was whimpering. His face was wet, but he had stopped crying. I remember him crying and screaming, but I had barely noticed until I stopped and rested. I noticed that he had shifted his position a little, while he was squirming under the strapping. And I could see Stella's face, and she looked absolutely paper-white with terror. This was far more severe than anything I had tried with her. But instead of thinking, she's scared, I had better stop, I thought, she is never going to let me try this again, this is my only chance, I had better make it work. So I kept going. I kept going until Pippin passed out, and I was covered in blood spatter, and Estella was looking at me like I was an orc."

Merry passed his hand over his eyes, and twisted up his hair in it, then let go and sighed. He looked over at Pippin, who was staring down at his fishing pole. "You don't remember this part, Pippin, because you were asleep. I started crying. I picked you up, off of Estella, and said 'This was our last hope. And it didn't work.' And Estella started crying too, and I tried to reach for her, and she scooted away from me. She said, 'It's just as well, I don't think I could make a child with you when you come to me covered in your kinsman's blood.' I sobbed, but then I started thinking about practicalities again, and I said, 'I have to clean him up.' I stood up and carried Pippin over my shoulder, and said, 'Get some hot water. I'm going to give him a bath.' And Estella said, 'I'll draw one for you, too. You're a mess.' And that was the last thing she said to me for a week."

For a while, no one said anything. Finally, Aragorn said, "There are no fish in this lake. Let's go back to shore."


	7. Chapter 7

Passing for Underhill Chapter 7

Merry was driving the cart. Estella sat next to him, all the hobbit children were in the back with the baggage, and the other four adult hobbits and Eldarion were riding ponies. They were on the path by the river that flowed from Lake Evendim past the Shire. It was a fine, hot afternoon when the party reached a resting-spot by the trail where there was access to the river. Here, the Brandywine flowed over a little waterfall and then spilled into a wide, still pond, and continued with minor rapids on the other side.

"Looks like a swimming hole to me," said Rosie.

"Good idea, Rosie," said Sam, dismounting from his pony. It was not the beast from the Ring War; old Bill was long gone now.

Merry stopped the cart and the children jumped off, peeling off sweaty clothes and jumping in the pond with great splashes. The grown hobbits followed more sedately, after seeing to their ponies. Eldarion rooted in his luggage, and said, "I cannot seem to find my bathing suit."

Pippin called to him from the water, "That's because it isn't in there. I repacked your case for you. All the things you have that a hobbit wouldn't have will be waiting for you in Bree when your adventure is over."

"But I want to swim, too!"

"Then you'll have to make like a hobbit. Except for the foot wraps, leave those on. Remember, we'll be telling people that you can't heal yourself, only other people, and there's something wrong with your feet. You should get used to living your alias now, before we reach the Shire."

The Prince made a face. He picked his way down to the water's edge, took off his tunic, and hung it on a tree limb. He looked at the water, considering whether to get in as he was, in his pants.

"Come on in," encouraged his age-mate Frodo Gardner. "Look, there are cat-tails!" Frodo-lad picked a reed and tossed it to his sister Elanor, who tossed it back. "Come join Elanor and I!"

"Elanor and me," corrected Eldarion. Young Frodo and Eldarion were both quite serious about their bargain to teach each other. "You can tell how to say it by taking the first name out and running it through your mind without it. Come join me. Come join I. See the difference?"

"I do! Hey, you're good at that, do you know? Making all that grammar stuff seem like it makes sense, I mean." Frodo-lad tossed the cat-tail back to Elanor, who tossed it to one of their numerous younger siblings, and a great game of toss ensued.

"Thanks." Eldarion bent down and tested the water with his hand. The water did seem nice, but he knew if he had to ride his pony with wet pants he would regret it. He had packed only one other pair, a nice pair of hobbit style trousers that he never intended to wear while riding. They were for pretty. For making miracles in.

"Oh for heaven's sake," said Pippin, "if you want to swim, just shuck out of that and jump in, nobody can see you once you're in the water anyway. What are you afraid of?"

"I'm not afraid!" Eldarion exclaimed. He stood up and looked like he was summoning his resolve.

"Pip!" Merry slapped the back of Pippin's head. "What are you thinking? Don't dare him, that's almost like force at his age, can't you remember?"

Sam instructed, "Eldarion—Mr. Underhill I mean-- , there's no cause to worrit yourself about proper swimming, just jump in trousers and all if it's more comfy that way."

Merry continued to berate his cousin, "Just how do you suppose Aragorn will see it when he asks Eldarion how his stay in the Shire was and the first thing he says is, well to start off with they made me get naked."

"Alright, alright!" Pippin whined, eyes downcast. "I was only trying to help him fit in. Once we reach the Shire he had better be able to act like a hobbit or the jig's up."

Eldarion slipped smoothly into the water, pants and all. He drifted over to the game of toss and held out his hands, waiting to be included.

When they reached the Shire, several leisurely days' ride later, the whole procession clattered over the Brandywine Bridge with Merry, Pippin, and Eldarion in the lead, all singing The Innkeeper's Daughter. Sam and Rosie were in the cart, and Rosie was turned around in the passenger seat, making her children hold their hands over their ears so they would not hear the lewd parts. Diamond was taking no chances, holding little Faramir's ears herself as he rode before her, with her pony's reigns slack. The animal followed the one in front of it without any direction from its rider. In this way, they all rode down the Road into the Shire, and no one challenged them.

They all spent their first night in the Shire at the little house at Crickhollow, where Merry and Pippin had once lived together before they married, and Pippin returned to his proper folkland. The little house was a guesthouse once again, as it had been before Frodo purchased it.

"Sing hey for the bath at the close of day!" Pippin fairly skipped out to the well when he had seen to the animals. He brought in bucket after bucket of water, and set the lasses to heating several large pots on the stove. "And what order shall we go in?" asked Pippin. "This house still has three tubs, if I recall."

"In order of rank?" asked Prince Eldarion.

"Fine," said Pippin, "but remember, in the Shire, you're Mr. Underhill the Traveling Miracle Worker. And he doesn't rank at all."

Sam came to Eldarion's rescue. "It's not the order that's important to our dear Mr. Underhill, it's the company. Or the lack of it, if you take my meaning." Since the travelers had followed the river all the way from Undomelin to the Shire, they had swum every day, and Eldarion had steadfastly refused to go skinny-dipping, despite what was getting to be a rather annoying amount of 'encouragement' from Pippin. "How's this? First us husbands, then the wives, then the children. And Mr. Underhill can go last—and all alone."

"Fine," agreed Eldarion.

"What, you're still hung up on nudity, after all these afternoons at the river? Anybody would think you're hiding something," commented Pippin. "Besides the utter hairlessness of your feet, that is."

Merry slapped Pippin's upper arm. "Stop it, Pippin. Any body would think YOU'RE turning into a watcher."

"Merry! I was not— am not—" Pippin sputtered.

"Water's ready," said Rosie. "You three git." The Travelers headed for the bathroom and the debate ended.

The next day the ladies washed the road-dust and river-mud out of everyone's traveling clothes, while the Travelers and the older children offered conflicting last-minute bad advice to Eldarion on how to pass for a hobbit. Then the party continued on to the much less cramped quarters of Bag End. As was their habit, Merry and Pippin both wore their knightly regalia as they rode through the Shire. The Shire-folk were used to them now, and many people smiled as they passed at the head of the column.

When the hobbits arrived at Bag End, singing and laughing, the grown hobbits and the older children grabbed luggage and Rosie opened the door. They were greeted by a mess. The purse-table in the entry had been gnawed in half. Some sort of droppings were all over the tile floor.

Pippin let out a blue string of Umbarian curses.

"Language!" shouted Diamond.

"Set down the bags, everybody," said Sam. "Probably just an animal, but we shouldn't ought to go blindly forward 'til we see what's in here."

"Right, Sam," said Merry. He loosened his sword in its scabbard. "Even an animal can be dangerous. Whatever chewed through the table legs had teeth."

It was not long before they came across the culprits: a family of rabbits. Merry and Pippin drew their swords and pounced on the hapless animals. Pippin grabbed one by the ears and slaughtered it, while Merry's target jumped away. Sam grabbed one of the smaller ones and held it out where its teeth and back legs couldn't reach him. Merry slit the little throat.

"Ah, Rosie's not gonna be happy with this rabbit blood all over the rug," Sam commented. Merry and Pippin ran after the other rabbits as Sam brought the kills to the kitchen. The cousins chased the rabbits all over Bag End, but finally caught them all. Merry and Pippin came into the kitchen panting from the chase, and piled the carcasses on the counter.

"Rabbit stew?" asked Pippin.

"Sure," said Sam. "Better wash up before you go outside, there's enough blood all over you two; you look like you've been hunting orcs in here instead of bunnies."

"Oh," Pippin said, looking down at himself. "But it's red. Orc blood is black."

"You think the kids know that?"

"Oh."

There was still a covered bucket with water in it near the basin; apparently the rabbits had not figured out how to get the lid off to drink from it. They filled the basin in the sink and washed their hands, then their swords, and finally peeled out of their tunics and washed them in the clean water still in the bucket.

"We couldn't have the White Tree turned into a speckled white and red tree, now could we?" Pippin commented.

Merry and Pippin draped their Rohan and Gondor surcoats over the backs of chairs to dry, and left their swords on the kitchen counter, to be properly dried and oiled later before being sheathed again. They headed to the front door.

"Bring in some more water when you come back," Sam called after them.

They opened the round, green door, and Pippin assured the families, "Just rabbits. Guess what's for dinner?"

Everyone came in, and as predicted, Rosie was not pleased with the mess. "Lovely," she sighed. "Just lovely. Just what I needed. Well, there's no help for it, we've no time to spare before the blood dries. Elanor, be a good lass and get our guests settled."

"Sure, mumma. This way, please, good gentles." Elanor swept a hand back to indicate the hallway, displaying the court manners she had learned at Undomelin. She looked so utterly serious that Rosie had to suppress a giggle. Another Gamgee whose head was turned by elves, that one. Well, by Arwen anyway; Elanor seemed totally indifferent to Eldarion, which was all to the good. Perhaps Eldarion's friendship with Frodo-lad had put him in the 'irritating little brother' category for Elanor.

After stowing the luggage, Merry and Pippin and their wives, with Estella holding little Faramir, went from room to room to survey the damage. Mostly it was chewed wood, stained carpets, and general filth, with a number of things missing from the pantry. But when they came into study, and saw chewed paper everywhere, Pippin let loose with another vile curse, this time in Black Speech.

"Language!" Diamond admonished. "Little Faramir is listening."

Pippin started picking up papers and stacking the ones that could be saved, and dropping the ruined ones into a wastebasket with a little moan.

"Not like that, Di," Merry whispered confidentially. "You have to get his attention."

Diamond set little Faramir down. She whispered back, "I'm not like you, Merry. I think we established that well enough at that anniversary party, didn't we?"

"Want me to correct him for you next time?"

Diamond considered for a moment. She looked at Pippin, gathering up distressed books and still cursing like a soldier, despite the fact that his boy was now trying to help by standing next to him and handing him bits of shredded paper off the floor. "Yes," she said quietly.

They abandoned the cleanup of the study when Rosie called everyone to dinner. Sam had added numerous 'taters' to the rabbit stew, and seasoned it with salt and parsley. Rosie had not had time to bake bread, but there was a selection of fruits and cheeses, and from the famed cellars of Bag End, ciders and wines. There was also a heaping bowl of salad, as Sam had harvested a goodly number of near-bolting lettuces and slightly sun-shriveled tomatoes from his neglected garden.

After the meal, the Gamgee children cleared the table, while Merry and Pippin went into the kitchen to retrieve their swords. The three wives started doing the dishes. Pippin finished caring for his blade and sheathed it about the time that a stray bunny hopped out of a cupboard.

"Kherekh burzum! I thought we got them all!"

Everyone turned to look. Sam, who was closest, tried to grab the rabbit, which escaped out the kitchen door.

Merry happened to have his sword in his hand when Pippin swore. He turned it and struck Pippin's rump with the flat of the blade. "Language!" Merry growled.

Pippin gasped in shock. He stood blinking for a few seconds, his mouth hanging open.

Diamond put a hand to her mouth, wide-eyed, as it sank in what she had seen Merry do. She gave Merry an acknowledging nod.

"Come on," said Merry, running after the rabbit, his sword still out. "The hunt is on!"

Goldilocks made the connection between the cute bunny and what she had just eaten for dinner, and burst into tears. "Bunny wabbit! Bunny wabbit!"

Merry and Pippin ran into the corridor as Rosie dried her hands and picked up her blubbering daughter. Little Faramir followed his father, determined to help.

"This way!" Pippin screeched, catching sight of the rabbit. "It ran into the north tunnel!"

Merry and Faramir-lad charged after him. The north tunnel was used for storage, and there was quite a lot of sawdust and rabbit pellets on the floor, amid a tangle of boxes, bags, crates, chests, and wardrobes. The three came to a halt in the middle of the tunnel.

"We lost him," said Merry, and sheathed his sword.

"I guess so," agreed Pippin ruefully. "We'll have to search through all this old junk."

"Kherekh burzum," said little Faramir.

Without thinking, Merry aimed a slap at the back of his head. Pippin caught Merry's arm in an iron grip. "What do you think you're doing?" Pippin hissed.

"I wasn't—ow, Pip, let go."

Pippin dug his nails into Merry's flesh right through his shirtsleeve. "What. Did. You. Think. You. Were. Doing."

"It's just a reflex!"

Pippin looked down at his son. "Go to your room, Faramir."

"But—"

"Now!"

The child took a step backward and wailed, "I don't know which one's my room!"

"Alright, go find your mother then."

The boy ran off.

Pippin turned his furious gaze back to Merry. "Well?" he demanded.

"It's a habit, Pippin, I hit you all the time."

"You can hit me as much as like you, but touch my son and I'll kill you dead."

"Pip," Merry admonished, "you don't mean that." He pulled his arm out of Pippin's grip. "No hobbit has ever killed another on purpose."

Pippin grabbed both Merry's arms and slammed him back against the wall. Merry tripped over the box behind him, and his head hit the wall with a sickening crack.

"I do mean it," Pippin hissed.

Merry's eyes crossed, and he went resistless. There were now two Pippins spinning in front of him.

Encouraged by Merry's sudden relaxation, which Pippin interpreted as a decision on Merry's part not to fight, Pippin turned him over and bent him across the box. Pippin drew his sword and swatted Merry's behind with the flat.

"Say you're sorry," Pippin demanded.

"Pippin, don't," Merry said. He started to push up from the box, but Pippin put a hand to the small of his back and held him down. It was easy. Merry's strength had left him, and he was so dizzy he wasn't sure if he could stand up even if no one was trying to prevent him, but Pippin thought Merry was putting up only token resistance on purpose.

Pippin smacked Merry's backside three more times, hard. "Say you're sorry!"

"Sorry!" Merry whispered. Now he was getting nauseous, too, and was afraid he was going to add semidigested dinner to the mess to be cleaned up in here. He rubbed his eyes and got his hands under him again, and tried to rise.

Pippin thrust him back down. "And promise never to do it again!" Pippin punctuated the command with another hard blow from the flat of the barrow-blade.

"Pippin, stop." SMACK. "Seriously, stop." SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK SMACK. "Please, Pip!"

Pippin yanked Merry's trousers down and delivered a volley of ringing blows to his bare bottom. The edges of the sword nicked his skin here and there.

"I promise!" Merry cried.

"You promise what?" Pippin demanded, giving him another spank.

"I promise I will never hit Faramir!"

"Good. Now that we've got that settled, your punishment can begin."

Merry struggled to rise, and Pippin held him down and struck him again. "Stay down," he ordered.

"Pippin, please," SMACK "let me up," SMACK "help me up, I think I—" SMACK "I think I've got a concussion."

Pippin stopped abruptly and the hand left Merry's back. "What?" Pippin put his sword back in its scabbard.

Merry tried to stand up, fell to the floor and puked.

"Merry!" Pippin took his arm and pulled him to his feet. "Why didn't you say something?"

"I did say something! I said stop!" Merry brushed off Pippin's hand and staggered for the door. Pippin again tried to take his arm, and Merry pushed him away. "Get away from me. Leave me alone." Merry stumbled into the doorframe and rebounded. He fled down the corridor, supporting himself with a hand to the wall.

"Merry!" Pippin called after him.

Merry ran outside, took two tries to get through the garden gate, and careened wildly down the Road. He got about a half a dozen steps from Bag End before he fell to his knees.

He heard a voice, soft as if from far away, ask, "What is wrong, little hobbit?"

It sounded like Gandalf, so he answered. "My whole world's turned upside down."

"You are dizzy. It is quite natural to feel the world is tipping, when you have taken such a blow."

"The knock to my noggin wasn't THAT bad." Merry looked around, and could not locate the speaker. "Or maybe it was. I do seem to be hearing voices and talking to myself."

"What then has transpired, that your world is so shattered?"

"Pippin flipped me. Valar's sake, Pippin flipped me!"

"We need not mention them, need we?" asked the voice. "Speaking a name of power draws its attention. But it was power that you came to this spot seeking, was it not?"

"Well, yes, I suppose. I do want my power back."

"Good, good, saying what you want is the first step. As it happens, power is something I can give you."

"Really? Who are you? Where are you?"

"I have no name. Not yet. Perhaps you will give me one. As to where I am, why, look under that delicate little Queen Anne's Lace by the roadside."

Merry crawled to the edge of the road and pawed the ground under the umbelliferous weeds. "There's nothing here."

"Dig deeper. I await you. Power beyond your imagining."

Merry dug into the ground with his bare hands.

The voice went on, "Do you know how long I waited for someone who could hear my voice? I had to wait for someone who desired power. Do you know how I despaired, knowing how unlikely it would be for someone who desired power to come HERE? To Bag End? Well, I suppose there was Frodo Baggins, for a while. He missed my kind deeply. He would have heard my call, had I spoken to him. But he was all used up. Burned out. He was no good to me. You, on the other hand, Meriadoc Brandybuck, Master of Buckland. You will do nicely."

"Why do you sound like Gandalf?" Merry asked.

"Do I? Oh my. I sound like the Gray Fool? No, no, I was made by a wizard, but not that one. My voice sounds like my maker's voice, and has its power."

Merry gasped. "This is the spot where Saruman died!" But he kept digging.

"It is," agreed the voice. "Saruman of Many Colors, Saruman Ring-Maker."

Merry's questing fingers hit something solid. His eyes widened as he extracted it from the soil, and saw the glint of gold.

End of Chapter Seven


	8. Chapter 8

Passing for Underhill Chapter Eight

Merry lay on his side by the edge of the Road. The throbbing of the knot on the back of his head seemed remote now, unimportant. His vision still would not focus, but he closed one eye and then he could gaze upon the beauty before him with rapt amazement. All the duplicates winked out when he looked at the world through his left eye: duplicate trees, duplicate clouds in the sky, duplicate hands, duplicate rings, all resolved to one image.

"Such a beautiful thing," Merry whispered. "Beautiful Thing." The gold was a wondrous rich color, the shape a perfection of form and craft. It was not truly an imitation of the One; nothing so transcendent could be an imitation anything. Rather, it was an ideal made solid, a thing of skill, yes, but more an expression of understanding. Merry realized that in the moment that Saruman let some of his own native power pass into this Ring, in that moment and never before did he know how the One was truly made.

Merry caressed the circle of gold. "Beautiful Thing." He had given it a name. In some deep part of his mind, he knew he ought to recoil from this thing. He ought to fling it away, or no, oughtn't he to destroy it? But he could never wish harm upon this Beautiful Thing. The gold was like rich sunlight on a warm autumn afternoon, and it scintillated with hints of green and blue and pink and yellow, like the robes of Saruman of Many Colors.

"Merry?"

Merry started when he heard Pippin's voice. He closed his hand around the ring, and thought of hiding it in his pocket, but from his position on the ground, lying on his side with his hands up by his face, he could never make the gesture look casual.

Merry looked up with his left eye at Pippin, who was standing over him with worry and guilt written on his face. Pippin bent down and tried to take Merry's hand to help him up, but it was the hand with the ring in it, and Merry pulled it away and rolled so that his hand was safe between the ground and his chest.

"I'm sorry, Merry," Pippin said, squatting down beside his cousin. "I didn't know I'd really hurt you. Let me help you back inside."

Merry shifted a little, wondering how to get the ring into his pocket without Pippin noticing. He heard the voice say, "Hide in plain sight." Somehow Merry knew exactly what that meant. But he thought, I don't want to turn invisible right now. The voice said, "You will not disappear. That is not my power." Merry maneuvered the ring with his thumb and pushed it onto his finger.

At once his vision sharpened, and he stopped squinting his right eye closed. He was no longer seeing double. But everything seemed a little flat, a little colorless, and maybe just a hint fluttery. As if everything were dissolving into the air around the edges. Pippin's appearance made a startling change. He glowed. Nay, he burned like fire! And like flame, his margins were even more streaked and insubstantial than the rest of the—the shadow-world, Merry realized. He was seeing the shadow-world.

Merry became aware of a sound inside him. It was the Voice, but it was his own voice. It was not saying anything to him. Instead it was like an echo that went on forever, and Merry knew that this was Potential. He could speak with that Voice. The idea was no sooner thought than done.

"Lay down and stay down," Merry said. His voice and the Voice were one, a doubling completely different from doubling of damaged sight. This was an odd melding of the two, and at the same time a completely alien sound: inhuman, but not animal or mechanical or anything recognizable.

Pippin dropped to the ground. Horrified, he shrieked, "What are you doing? We're in public!" Pippin tried to get up and found that he could not. "And how are you doing it?"

"I'm not doing anything," Merry lied. His voice was normal now. "World's back to normal, that's all." But the world looked anything but normal. He knew he was lying in the bright noon sun, but everything was dark and insubstantial, except for Pippin, whose form was like bright, dancing flames.

Pippin scrabbled on the ground. "Yes you are. But how? This feels like—Oh Merry, I really, truly, can't get up, I'm trying. It's like when I couldn't drop the Palantir. What are you doing?"

"Sh, sh, nothing's wrong, Pippin." Merry crawled over to him and rested the side of his sore head on Pippin's shoulder. A touch of the Voice crept into his speech, compelling and enchanting. "It's just your inborn nature coming to the fore again. You want to obey me; you don't want to get up. Everything's perfect again. It's in the natural order of things for you to change, Pippin. I know that. And you have changed, grown. You became a parent, and then you became the Thain. You had to learn to impose your will on others. But you don't want to do it to me. Now do you? You can't get up because it's not in your nature to defy me. Despite what you did just now."

"You really must have banged your head badly, because you're off your nut. And I am sorry about that. And everything. I didn't realize. When you didn't fight, I thought—well, I certainly didn't think it was because I'd nearly knocked you unconscious."

"It's alright, Pippin. It's not your fault."

"How can you say that? And please don't say you were asking for it, or you deserved it. That would be your father talking. I don't know what the heck I was thinking."

"I was, and I did," replied Merry, "But that's not what I meant."

"Well, what did you mean?" Pippin snapped.

"If you were under the impression that the failure to fight you off constitutes consent, whose fault is that? Not yours, I think."

"Oh. Well, that's not your fault, either. Even from the grave, he still poisons us."

"Perhaps we should dig him up and cut off his head. That's supposed to keep down revenant spirits, isn't it?"

"You must be feeling better, if you can crack a joke about the undead. How about letting me up now?"

Merry moved up his non-ring hand and smoothed Pippin's unruly curls. "Alright, Pippin. Get up. I'm done."

The counter-phrase eased the tension screaming out from Pippin's muscles. Pippin sighed with relief as he sat up, and pulled Merry to his feet along with him. Merry reeled, and Pippin put an arm around his shoulder to support him. With slow steps, they walked back to Bag End and through the garden gate.

"So, what did you do? Really."

"Nothing, Pippin."

"Don't give me that! I know the touch of the dark arts when I feel them."

"It—it doesn't matter now."

"The heck it doesn't!"

"Alright, you're right, I used magic. But I needed that, Pip. I really did. All I wanted in the world was to feel powerful again. I needed to make you lie down for me. And you did, so now everything's fine again. Except for the knot on my head, but that'll go away on its own."

"And how exactly did you cast this spell?" Pippin asked suspiciously.

"Don't worry. Just something I picked up from a wizard."

"Oh." Pippin seemed to accept that answer. Perhaps he could tell it was the truth.

They were walking through the garden when they saw Frodo Gardner peering under shrubbery with a burlap sack in one hand. Little Faramir trailed after him. "Let me hold the sack? Then you'll have two hands for bunny-catching."

"Scram," said Frodo-lad. When the boy kept following him like a duckling, the older child asked, "Fairy, I've got enough annoying little brothers and sisters of my own. Eight of them, including baby Bilbo, though he doesn't crawl yet. Why are you so attached to me anyway?"

"I don't know. I love you!"

Pippin stopped walking, feeling slightly ill. Perforce Merry halted too, since he was leaning on Pippin. Pippin whispered, "Merry, look. It's—it's you and me." Pippin paused a moment, then added, "The age difference is almost exactly the same. What do I do?"

"Don't do anything, Pip," Merry advised calmly. "It's not you and me. It's you and me as we should have been. As we could have been, if the adults hadn't ruined it. And you know you're not going to, and you don't think Sam's that kind either, do you?"

"No," Pippin admitted.

Frodo-lad asked, "What would you do with a rabbit if you caught one?"

"Give it to Goldilocks. I think she'd like one more than a frog."

Merry and Pippin exchanged a smile, and walked into the smial. Estella hurried over to Merry when she saw how he was leaning on Pippin to walk. "What happened?"

"I fell," said Merry.

"Mer—" Pippin began.

"I fell," Merry ground out, using a bit of the Voice.

Pippin thought, have it your own way. He helped Merry sit down in a plush chair in one of the parlors. "I'll get Eldarion."

Soon rabbit-hunters appeared from all over Bag End. "What happened?" Eldarion asked.

"He fell," chorused Pippin and Estella. Then they gave each other startled looks.

Eldarion seemed not to notice the scripted-sounding response. He examined Merry's head, probing the swelling, and administering tests of his eyes. "Sam, if you please, find me some athelas."

"I know right where some is, sir."

Without being asked, Rosie went to the kitchen and put a kettle on to boil. Soon everyone was gathered around, and the plants and hot water were ready. Eldarion went through his ritual of breathing on the leaves and mumbling something before casting the leaves into the water. The wholesome fragrance of kingsfoil filled the room.

Eldarion bathed Merry's head with a cloth, then gently held his hand over the knot and closed his eyes. Long minutes passed. Suddenly Eldarion recoiled with a wordless cry. His eyes snapped open and he staggered backwards into Rosie. The sturdy housewife caught his shoulders and steadied him.

"Something fought me," Eldarion gasped. "Something dark."

"Sit down, Mr. Underhill," said Sam. "That's enough miracles for today, I think."

Eldarion sat down, and Rosie disposed of the leftover herbal waters.

Merry came swimming up to consciousness as if out of deep water. He was aware that he had already been sitting up with his eyes open, so he could not really have been asleep. He thought it was more like he had been shunted aside. His head did feel better. The lump didn't hurt anymore, and he no longer felt dizzy or sick. But everything was awfully dark in here, despite the open shutters. Only Pippin and Sam seemed truly alive. Whereas Pippin burned like a forge, Sam only flickered like a candle. But everyone else merely cast shadows in his mind. There was a light about Eldarion, too, but it was white, like sun on the sea, not red like fire.

I'm still in the shadow-world, Merry realized. He put his hand in his pocket and slipped off the ring. Instantly everything seemed normal again. Nothing looked airy or misty or dark. Bright sunlight streamed in through the windows. Pippin and Sam just looked like normal hobbits. Eldarion—well, Eldarion still had a light about him. Sam was right, Merry could see the elf-lord in the boy.

"Thank you," Merry said. "You're still a Miracle Worker."

"I only healed the physical injury," said Eldarion, a little out of breath. "There's something else. I don't know what, I've never encountered anything like it. And it's entirely new since I last treated you. I'm certain I would have noticed it! It's not a cancer, or anything physical, as far as I can tell. Nor is it possession. I've seen that before too. Father let me observe when he broke the spell on an unfortunate man of the north whose family brought him to the king for aid."

"Well, whatever it is," Merry said, unconsciously putting a hand to his trouser-pocket to touch the shape of the ring within, "I'm no longer in pain, and I think I'll be fine now. I'll bow out of tonight's planned revelry, but I'm not in any danger, am I, Mr. Underhill?"

"No. At least, not physically. Or, not yet. I'm not sure. I think you'll be fine for now."

"Good." Merry nodded decisively, then regretted the motion. After a moment, he continued, "So the rest of you go on and have fun."

"I'll stay with him," volunteered Estella. "And the little ones."

There ensued a debate between the adults and the older children as to who was too young to come to the Green Dragon. Frodo Gardner pointed out that he was the same age as Eldarion, for whose benefit the party was going. Sam and Rosie reluctantly agreed with this assessment, but Rosie firmly told him, "But nobody knows that but us. And that's the way it's to stay. So you just be a good lad—and Elanor, you be a good lass—and watch your brothers and sisters so 'Stella can take care of poor Merry without the lot of you interrupting every half minute. If you two can keep order while I'm gone, I'll sew you each a rabbit fur cap."

Elanor's eyes widened with glee. "Of course we'll tend the littles!" She was fashion-mad now, having spent her summer at the king's court, or more to the point, the queen's.

"Oh, all right," Frodo-lad reluctantly agreed.

When it was time to go, and Eldarion, Pippin, Diamond, Sam and Rosie were all dressed up and on their way out the door, Eldarion cast a nervous glance behind him at Merry. There was something seriously wrong. He wondered if he should try to figure it out himself, or send for his father. But he was a Miracle Worker. He planned to cement that reputation by performing a miracle here in the Shire. There was no better miracle-fodder to be had. If he could not deduct or intuit the cause of Merry's malady, and cure it, he could always bring Merry to his father in Bree when the king and his court returned to Gondor.

But when Eldarion met Merry's eyes, just before the round door closed, Eldarion shivered. He was still certain that Merry was not possessed of a demon. But there was a spiritual evil at work here. Something very old. No; a piece of something old, Eldarion realized. A fragment. No; it was not broken. A child? No, wrong again. He was on the trail now. He would give it more thought, and when he had formed a theory, he would gather athelas and test it.

In the meantime, he had come to the Shire to experience the hobbit lifestyle. He was determined to set aside his misgivings for tonight, and have a grand time. The five of them came to the inn and ordered ales. Sam introduced him to the local hobbitry, "This here is Mr. Underhill the Traveling Miracle Worker."

"Miracle Worker, is it?" asked Larry Sandhill the bricklayer. "What's he done miracled?"

"Well, we'll all see soon enough," Sam said. "Let's just say it's a boon to the folk of Buckland."

There were rowdy guffaws. Evidently Merry and Estella's lack of an heir to the Mastery after seven years of marriage had been noted even beyond the borders of Buckland.

Pippin stood up on a table and hoisted an ale to Mr. Underhill. Then he announced, "There's a new song I've been dying to perform. Well, it's not new, I wrote it a long time ago. But I never sing it around Merry, because he hates it." Pippin paused for another swig.

"And seeing as he's not here tonight…" prompted Sam.

Pippin launched into his song. Soon he had them all singing along with the chorus:

How can they bear to drink the stuff,

Have they all lost their heads?

One sip o' the ghastly orc liquor

And you will wish you're dead.

I don't know how they make the stuff

And I don't want to see.

Don't pass me that bottle of orc liquor

Get something else for me.


	9. Chapter 9

Passing for Underhill Chapter Nine

Merry went to bed early. He could hear children's laughter and odd thumping sounds through the walls. He would be perplexed by the sounds if the didn't already know what they were doing: playing bunny hunt. Some were playing, that is, and some of the children were actually hunting for the missing rabbit.

Would he and Estella ever have children of their own? And if they did, he wondered, would he be as good a father as Pippin was? Pippin had been right to be angry with him. Murderously enraged, even. Merry had come very close to actually hitting little Faramir. Pippin was right to be mad at him; but when he had flipped Merry, Merry had felt betrayed. He had felt so helpless, so powerless, so… impotent.

And the first thing he had wanted to do was make Pippin feel equally helpless. Was that what he had been doing to Pippin all these years, abusing him? Merry thought back to the conversation in the boat. Had Aragorn's concern been right on target after all? Did Merry need to exert power over his best friend in order to feel he wasn't powerless himself? In order to feel—safe?

Merry reached into the pocket of his pants, hanging on a chair beside the bed, took out the Beautiful Thing and looked at it, and felt it. It was still exquisitely beautiful, perfect in every way, gleaming faintly in the moonlight coming in from the window. Merry felt sick about picking it up in the first place, and even worse about using it. "I don't want this power," he said, and tried to throw it into a corner of the room. But his hand closed on the ring, and he could not fling it from him. "Well, I'm stuck with it," Merry said bitterly. "I've been afraid all my life of turning into Saradoc. But now I'm turning into Saruman instead." Even as he spoke these bitter words to the darkness, his hand caressed the smooth metal, making little circles as he traced the perfection of its form.

The door opened, and Merry guiltily stuffed the ring back in the pocket. His pants fell off the chair, but Merry did not have time to put them back up. Estella padded into the room holding a single candle in the brass candlestick.

"How are you feeling, Merry?"

Inappropriate responses flickered through his mind: Bad? Sick? Afraid? Guilty? Abused? Ashamed? Insane? "I think my miracle is defective. I still have a lump on my head. Isn't it supposed to just go away, pop! Like that? Or did we not keep up the service plan on miracles?"

Estella smiled. "There's nothing wrong with your miracle, darling. You just only get one. I'm pregnant."

For one astonished moment, all Merry could do was gape. Then he jumped out of bed and embraced her. "Estella!" He hugged her and her furrry feet left the floor.

"Woop! Don't drop me!" Estella shrilled.

Merry laughed. Still embracing her, he fell onto the bed and pulled her down with him. Then he kissed her with great enthusiasm.

In the rest of Bag End, Elanor and Frodo Gardner tried their best to keep their younger brothers and sisters under control. But they were outnumbered, and some of the little rascals got into the storage tunnels and started ransacking them. The rabbit reappeared in the middle of this, eluded the noisy vandals, and hopped into the larder. There it hid, nose a-quiver, until a patient, quiet lad tiptoed into the room with a carrot and a makeshift wood and reed cage he had gotten Frodo Gardner to help him make.

The rabbit was wild, not a pet, but it had been confused and hungry for a long time. When the boy set the carrot down on the floor and settled a few feet away, eyes closed, feigning disinterest, the rabbit crept up to the carrot and started eating. Then little Faramir pounced. He grabbed the rabbit by the ears, and it dropped pellets in fright. He stuffed it into the cage and closed the lid and latched it, then pushed the carrot through the reed bars.

"It did it!" he crowed. "I caught the bunny!"

He ran from room to room, looking for Goldilocks. He found her and several others of Sam and Rosie's children in the front room, under the exasperated care of Frodo-lad. Elanor was off in the north tunnel, attempting to contain the ever-widening tornado of little brothers.

"Goldie! Look! I caught the bunny for you. Would you like to have a bunny?" Faramir-lad extended the rabbit cage.

Goldie dimpled at him and squealed with delight. She ran up and took the hutch, but the rabbit kicked its powerful hind legs against the reed bars and broke out. It jumped away.

Frodo-lad grabbed the rabbit, and it bit him. "Ow! Ow! It's biting me, somebody kill it!"

"No!" shrieked Goldilocks. "Don't kill the poor bunny!" She ran to the front door and opened it. "Put it outside!"

Frodo Gardner did not have time to think. The animal was still biting him, and now it was clawing him with its hind legs, too. He ran and tossed it into the night, and slammed the door.

He stood for a few moments, looking at the bite wounds on his arm and the rips the rabbit had scratched in his shirt. Then he went to the kitchen sink and washed the bites. The little children trailed after him. He sat down in a kitchen chair and said, "I'm sorry the cage didn't work out, Fairy. But you know mom and dad would never have let Goldie keep the bunny."

"It's alright. The bunny will be fine now. It's outside where it belongs." Little Faramir turned to Goldie and said, "Your mom and dad will never put it in a stewpot now."

Goldilocks sniffled a little, but she nodded and took little Faramir's hand. "Thanks for saving the bunny wabbit."

"You're welcome, Goldie."

It was late morning when Sam came into the study to find Eldarion continuing the work of sorting salvageable from unsalvageable books and papers. "I wish I had access to the library at Minas Tirith right now," the Prince commented. "I have reviewed what I know of dark powers that might leave remnants behind, or divide into independent sections like those tuberous flowers you showed me yesterday. But I know so little of such things."

"Well," said Sam, going to the desk and pulling out a book with a red leather cover, "you're in the right place to read about dark powers. Thank goodness the blasted rabbits didn't get at this." He held the book out to Eldarion. "Go on. I can't say as I know if it'll help Mr. Merry for you to read this, but you've every right. Being the heir of Isildur, I mean, since it was him as started what Frodo finished, if you follow me."

"What is it?" Eldarion asked, setting down a tattered map and accepting the book.

"Frodo's diary."

Eldarion gasped. "I did not know such a work existed! Surely this is not the only copy."

"It is," said Sam.

"To think a dumb animal might have damaged such a valuable tome!" Eldarion opened the book and looked at the title page. "It must be copied. Will you have it copied, and send a copy to Minas Tirith?"

"Well, sure. I don't see why not." Sam shrugged. "Go on and read it."

"Thank you. I will." He skipped the pages written in Bilbo's crabbed hand, and began with Frodo's flowing script. He sat in rapt attention all through the day, and the hobbits could not even drag him away to eat lunch, to their consternation. Rosie brought tea in to him in the afternoon.

The hobbits had tea in the drawing room, an even more generous affair than usual, with many crumpets and fruit, due to having light breakfasts and lunches because Sam, Rosie, Pippin, and Diamond had woken up late and rather queasy. Merry nettled Pippin, "Looks like somebody overindulged last night."

"Oh, Merry, that's the understatement of the year. It's a good thing Eldarion decided he doesn't like beer after all, because I was in no condition to monitor how much he had."

Sam snorted, and Rosie interpreted, "That means Sam did not care for some of your later song selections, Mr. Pippin, despite your fine voice."

"No, Rosie, the songs were fine," said Sam. "I don't think Eldarion understood most of those puns anyway. It was the part where you raised a toast to the Witch-King of Angmar that got to me."

Pippin put a hand over his eyes in embarrassment. "And how goes the bunny hunt?"

"Not to change the subject or anything," said Merry.

Goldilocks piped up, "Faramir found the bunny wabbit and now he's safe outside!"

"What?" Diamond asked her son. "You released the rabbit outside?"

"No, it got out of the cage," explained little Faramir.

"So how did it get outside?" Diamond said.

Little Faramir looked guiltily at Goldilocks, and then at Frodo-lad. Frodo Gardner blushed, looked down, and went rigid, holding his breath as if to keep from being noticed.

"Wait, outside?" asked Sam. "You mean outside in my garden?" Sam looked at Frodo-lad's expression and body language, and asked gruffly, "Frodo-lad, did you let a rabbit loose in MY GARDEN?"

"N-not on purpose," the teen stammered. "That is, I—well—"

Sam stormed over to him and took him by the ear. "You're coming with me, young lad." Sam pulled him into the next room and shut the door. Muffled by the earthen wall, all that the others understood of Sam's tirade was the words lettuce and carrots and something about feeding his family. Then there was a smacking noise and a high pitched boy's cry.

Pippin startled. Merry took his hands, and held them as everyone in the suddenly quiet parlor listened to the repeated sounds of spanking and whimpering. Pippin winced visibly with each sound, squeezing his eyes shut, exactly the same way he had flinched with each echoing noise at the well in Moria. When there were no more sounds, he let out a long breath.

Merry said softly, "Sam's not my father, Pippin."

Pippin bit his lip and looked away. He cringed when Sam re-entered the room, and looked relieved when he stalked out and went outside to survey the damage to the vegetable patch.

In the uncomfortable silence, Diamond walked over and rested a reassuring hand on Pippin's shoulder. Rosie organized her children to clear away the tea things. When Frodo-lad reappeared, red-eyed, little Faramir ran to him and hugged him around the legs. "I love you, bunny-savior."

Frodo-lad patted the smaller boy's head. His voice was high and tight from crying as he said, "I love you too, Fairy."

Goldilocks came to them and put an arm around little Faramir and another around Frodo Gardner's legs and said, "You're both my heroes. I love you, Fairy."

"I love you too, Goldie."

End of Chapter Nine


	10. Chapter 10

Passing for Underhill Chapter Ten

The next few days passed in peace. Eldarion read the Red Book straight through, then immediately began to re-read it, to sort through his suspicions about dark powers. He had gotten caught up in the tale and had lost sight of his objective after the first few chapters.

The hobbits, children and adults, worked on the restoration of Bag End from the bunny damage, and the cleaning of the North Tunnel. This progressed to exploration of the many odd things stored in the North Tunnel. Rosie discovered some antique lace doilies which had probably belonged to Belladonna Baggins, nee Took, Bilbo's mother. She offered them first to Diamond, who demurred. Rosie cleaned them and pressed them and the next day there were doilies all over Bag End.

The adult hobbits and Eldarion went out to the Green Dragon again, this time including Merry and Estella. The Shirefolk took notice of how Estella refrained from strong drink, and how Merry was preternaturally attentive to her.

"So tell us," one of the gammers finally asked, "is it time to raise a toast of congratulations?"

Merry and Estella exchanged sappy grins, and Estella nodded. "Yes!" Merry enthused. "And while you're at it, raise a toast to Mr. Underhill the Traveling Miracle Worker!" That was how the rumor of the Miracle Worker started to spread throughout the Shire.

Rosie stood up and raised her mug. "Let me be the first to toast your joyous news! To Estella and Merry and baby make three!"

There was much well-wishing and hearty drinking to good health, and not a few jokes of the wink-wink nudge-nudge variety. Merry hovered around Estella, bringing her cider, mushrooms, toad-in-a-hole, cakes, nuts, and any sundries the inn could supply, until she finally got exasperated and told him to sit down.

Later in the evening, Pippin got very drunk again, and started singing an incredibly bawdy Umbarian Corsair sea chantey. "Shut it down, Mr. Pippin," Rosie told him. "You know how our Miracle Worker is uncomfortable with such things." Her attempt to remind Pippin that Mr. Underhill was really underage Eldarion without actually saying so did not work, despite her vast experience with drunken louts.

Pippin got to the end of his song, tried to bow to acknowledge the cheers of the pubgoers, and fell into Sam. Sam set him back in his chair. Then Pippin started in on an orcish marching song that made even Sam and Rosie blush, and unfortunately did not appear to be passing over Eldarion's head at all. Diamond tried to interrupt him, saying, "That's just awful, Pip! Sing something nice, if sing you must." Pippin kept right on going, though thankfully his enunciation was becoming difficult to understand.

Merry commanded harshly, "No Orcish songs, Pip, you're giving me the creeps," and raised a hand to whap Pippin upside the head, then hesitated and let his hand fall.

Of all things, this got Pippin's attention. He faltered and looked over at Merry. "Whatsamatterwit-you?" he slurred.

"I—can't anymore, Pippin."

"Why not?" Pippin pressed, his song forgotten.

"I didn't know—that is, of course I remembered being afraid, but—not here, Pippin, I'll tell you later. You probably won't remember tonight anyway."

"Sure I will. Remem—member—mem—" Pippin drained his tankard, getting most of it on his waistcoat. "Anyway, I don' wanchoo to shtop."

"What? I must be drunk too, I thought I heard you say you don't want me to stop hitting you?"

"A'course not. Don't want things to change. It'sh in the nash—nat-- natural order of things to change. Had to learn to impozhe—to to to—will on othersh. But I don't wanna do that to you, Merry."

"Aw, Pip, no. I told you to think that." Merry started to cry. No one was terribly shocked by this, as Merry appeared to be almost as deep in his cups as Pippin, judging by his uncoordinated movements. "It was the Voice. I'm so sorry, Pippin. If only I hadn't—if only you hadn't—it was your fault too, you know. I picked it up off the roadside, but I wouldn't've wanted to if you hadn't made me feel so damned powerless."

"What are you talking about, Merry? No, wait, I know, the shpell, the wiszhard shpell. And the nort' tunnel. Oh Merry I'm shorry, I thought you were letting me, I never meant to forsh you—ai-oi!" Now Pippin started crying too. "Thatsh where it wazh leading you shee, O Merry, no, I never meant it! I'm shorry." Pippin put his head down on the table and sobbed.

"It wasn't a spell," said Merry. "No! I've got to stop talking about this right now." Merry dashed out of the inn.

"I think that's our cue, friends," said Estella. "Mr. Underhill, if you would be so kind as to carry our august and respectable Thain?"

"Of course, dear lady," said Eldarion. "And may I presume the rest of you can walk on your own?"

"I can walk!" exclaimed Pippin. He got up and staggered in the general direction of the door. Eldarion put an arm around Pippin and steered him out. Their amazing similarity in height was less apparent with Pippin slightly slumped over, or perhaps Eldarion had grown. The other hobbits followed.

Merry was standing in the street outside, fiddling with something in his pocket. Estella tried to help him walk straight, but Merry fended her off. "No, no, 'Stella, you mustn't strain yourself."

"I'll help him," Sam volunteered. Although Sam had downed quite as many ales as Merry and Pippin, his stout mass kept it from affecting him as much. Also, Sam was an experienced patron of inns, having spent much of his time finding excuses to be around Rosie while trying to work up the nerve to court her.

When they came back to Bag End, they found Elanor wearing Primula Brandybuck's wedding dress, most of the little lads and lasses hopping through the smial playing bunny hunt, and Frodo Gardner attempting to get his next younger two brothers, Merry-lad and Pippin-lad, to get down off the kitchen table and to 'please! Put down! The scissors! And let go of your sister Rosie-lass!' The baby ignored everyone, curled up with a doll that Elanor had found while raiding Frodo's parents' trunks in the north tunnel. Little Faramir and Goldilocks were engaged in piracy, or at least, something involving a large white sheet on a stick.

Sam and Rosie soon restored order among their children. Everyone slept late the next day.

In was getting on toward elevenses, and Eldarion was in the study. The Red Book was propped open in front of him, but his eyes were fixed on the blue sky outside the little round window. He was beginning to form a theory about the dark power he had sensed near Merry. He remembered Merry saying "I picked it up by the roadside" at the inn last night. Eldarion wondered if the dark power might be some sort of talisman. As he understood it, the One Ring was enchanted using some of the maker's own power, so that it was literally a part of its maker. That was why the Dark Lord could not be killed permanently as long as the Ring survived, and that was why destroying the Ring destroyed Sauron. It was less a work of craft than Sauron's dark heart made into a fair form.

Eldarion went in search of Merry. He found all the adult hobbits in the parlor, along with the baby and Elanor, who was trying on her new rabbit fur hat. She admired herself in a hand mirror and gushed to her mother about how stylish it was, and how she was going to ask to become a lady-in-waiting to Arwen when she was older.

Eldarion chose a plush chair and waited for Elanor's profuse thanks to Rosie to run down. Then he asked, "Merry, last night at the inn you said you picked something up off the road. You also said something about a Voice and that it was not a spell. You seemed near to confessing something, just before you sped from the company. What was it?"

Merry didn't answer. He looked down uncomfortably, and fidgeted with something in his pocket.

"I'm wondering the same thing, Mr. Merry," said Sam. "But more than that, I'm wondering about something you said, Mr. Pippin. Just what is going on between you two?"

Pippin looked down, then up at Merry, then down again. "What did I say? Never mind. It's all resolved now, right Merry?" His eyes squeezed halfway shut.

"Yes. All fine," Merry said flatly, not meeting anyone's gaze.

"Bull," said Diamond. "But that can wait. I have a hunch it's to do with things Eldarion shouldn't be hearing. I've known Pip long enough to know what that squinchy eye expression means."

"Oh," said Estella quietly. "And here I didn't even realize anything was wrong. Wrapped up in myself, I suppose."

"You just stay wrapped up in yourself, 'Stella dear," Merry smiled. "Don't let anything spoil our happiness."

"To return to the topic," said Eldarion, "precisely what did you pick up on the roadside, Merry?" He paused, but Merry did not answer, again fiddling with the contents of his pocket. "Merry?" Eldarion asked again. "Could it have been a magical talisman, perchance?"

Suddenly Sam made the connection. He stood up and blurted, "What has it got in its pocketses?"

"Sam!" Pippin gasped, recognizing the quote.

Merry took a breath, as if in preparation for speech, then let it out. He swallowed hard, and shifted in his seat. "I—yes. Yes, Eldarion. There is a talisman."

"What?!" Estella and Pippin, Merry's strongest partisans, shouted together.

"I knew it!" crowed Eldarion, more pleased with his own deductive reasoning than frightened of the implications.

"What sort of talisman?" demanded Sam.

At that inopportune moment—or very convenient moment, depending on one's perspective—someone rang the front door bell. Rosie got up to answer it, not without a backward glance at the tense gathering.

Diamond said, "Do you smell that?"

"Smell what?" Pippin asked her.

"Smoke! Not cooking smoke or weed, something different."

Estella stood up in a panic. "I smell it too! Bag End's on fire!" She dashed for the door.

"It smells like Gandalf's fireworks!" Merry cried.

"Go for the well!" Sam shouted. "Elanor, get the baby!" Then he ran deeper into the smial, yelling, "Children, children, run for it, everybody get out!"

Pippin and Diamond both pelted down the corridor, in search of their son. They found him in Goldilocks' room, playing marbles, and each grabbed a child and ran. Eldarion also took off deeper into the hobbit hole. At the door, Rosie was startled by Estella racing for the outside, pushing past the elderly visitor.

"What is it?" Rosie asked.

"Fire!" Estella replied. She ran halfway down the hill before she slowed down.

Rosie told the would-be guest, "No miracles today! Go and rouse the neighborhood, tell everyone to bring buckets of water. Go on, get! The hole's on fire, we've no time for your carbuncles now!"

Rosie ran to the well in the garden and started cranking. Soon a hubbub of hobbits joined her, the grownups coming out with clinging children, setting them down and immediately going back for more. Some children ran out on their own, some had already been outside and were attracted to the ruckus, and neighbors were dashing up the path with water, sent by Estella. They nearly ran down the elderly miracle-seeker.

Eldarion came out clutching the Red Book. Sam, grim-faced, passed the green door pulling young Merry-lad and Pippin-lad by the points of their ears. The boys' faces were covered with soot. Pippin turned white in shock when he saw them. His expression alerted Merry, and he turned to look, and saw his and Pippin's namesakes. His eyes bugged out at the scene. The boys looked exactly like he and Pippin had at Bilbo's party!

Merry had never really felt that Merry-lad and Pippin-lad were much like him and Pippin. They were such near agemates, barely fourteen months apart, that they never developed the leader and follower relationship that he and Pippin had had. But they certainly looked like them now! Merry's heart turned over in his chest.

Smoke poured from the windows of Bag End. The adult hobbits had to put aside their feelings for a time, and concentrate on fighting the fire. It was a long trip through the smial to reach the fire, as it had started in the north tunnel. All the grown hobbits were coughing by the time they re-emerged for another load of buckets.

Merry-lad was trying to hold back Pippin-lad from running back into Bag End. "You two stay out here," Sam ordered when he saw them. "I'll deal with you later."

"But Frodo's still in there!" cried little Pippin-lad.

"What? Where?" Sam asked.

"In the tunnel!"

Sam dashed back inside. He found Frodo-lad, not in the storage tunnel where the fire had started, but hiding in a nearby pantry. Sam heard him coughing, and tore the door off to get to him. He dragged the boy outside and pitched him down in the grass, said, "Later for you!" and ran to get another bucket.

The adult hobbits soon had the fire out. They stood around outside, reeking of smoke, with teary, stinging eyes, under the ironically blue, untroubled sky. Neighbors helped them wash off, brought them some restorative snacks, and made a reconnaissance through the house to open the windows and make sure the fire was completely out. Then, like sensible hobbits, they cleared off for lunch (and gossip.)

"Why in Middle Earth were you hiding in a burning house?" Rosie asked Frodo Gardner.

The boy, sitting down with his knees drawn up, coughed and hid his face in his hands.

"Because you felt guilty for starting the fire?" Sam accused. "You and your two brothers?"

Frodo-lad, awake to the gravity of the crime, started to shake. Merry-lad and Pippin-lad drew close and held each other.

"Well?" Sam demanded. "People could have been killed. You nearly burned down Bag End! Your gentlemanly birthright that you're always talking about."

Suddenly little Faramir stepped in front of Frodo-lad. "I did it! I started the fire."

"But—" Diamond started to protest.

"Hsh." Pippin put a hand on her arm. "I know," he whispered. "Just a moment."

Sam, derailed, stood and blinked a moment. "You did, did you? Well, that's between you and your parents, young Faramir."

Pippin knew his moment when he heard it. He strode over and scooped up Faramir. "I can't very well send you to your room right now. The other end of the garden will have to do. Diamond, come along please, I think the three of us need to talk."

When they were gone, Sam said, "Alright, you three, it's plain you were all there, even if it was Faramir-lad who started the fire. Frodo-lad, he's six, you're thirteen. If he was playing with fire, you bear some responsibility as well."

The boy coughed and his gaze followed little Faramir, being carried around the bend of the hill.

Sam looked at Merry-lad and Pippin-lad, rolled his eyes and sighed, "What was I thinking when I named you?"

"We didn't know what they were," said Pippin-lad. "We thought they were only sparklers."

"So you did set off some of old Gandalf's fireworks?"

"We didn't know!" Merry-lad chimed in. "We—" his words were cut off by a hacking cough.

Sam crossed his arms and looked stern. "You three—over there." He pointed to the opposite end of the garden from where the Tooks had gone.

"Sam," Rosie cautioned, "they're already hurt. Can't you hear them? The smoke got to them." She too was coughing, from running through the smial with pails of water.

"I hear them, Rosie. I hear you, too. And myself. And Goldie, and just about everyone else here. Someone could've died. I can't let that pass." Sam pointed. "Move, lads." Merry-lad and Pippin-lad started walking dejectedly. Sam had to haul Frodo-lad to his feet by his shirt collar, and drag him along.

The elder Merry was tempted to use the Voice to save the three boys. He fingered the ring in his pocket. It would be so easy. Little Faramir had already taken the immediate blame, and as Rosie said the three boys were clearly suffering from smoke inhalation. It would not take much persuading to change Sam's mind, with a little of the Voice's power behind the words. Merry had already seen how the Voice compelled both action and thought, and stuck in the mind long after the Voice was used. He could do it.

"For pity's sake," Merry said at Sam's back. But he spoke too softly for Sam to hear, and he was not using the Voice. The moment had passed. Merry was not sure whether he should be angry at himself for not saving the boys when he had the chance, or proud of himself for resisting the lure of the Beautiful Thing.

Eldarion sat down. "You hobbits are madmen," he said bitterly.

"What do you mean?" Estella asked. Merry turned to follow their conversation.

"As if today's near-disaster had not hurt everyone enough, the first thing Sam wants to do is inflict more pain on the wounded. I cannot stand it!"

Rosie said, "It's not that he wants to, El—Mr. Underhill," she corrected herself, aware that they were outside.

"No more Mr. Underhill. I no longer wish to be Mr. Underhill. I thought it was an honor, but I hate this place, and I want to go home." He suddenly grabbed his head and cried out, "Make it stop! Make him stop, Rosie. Please, for me. I am a healer, and I cannot forestall my empathy."

Merry went to Eldarion and patted his shoulder. "Your father is a great healer, too, but he was also a warrior. He had to walk through battlefields full of the dying, and keep his wits about him. I know you have it in you."

Eldarion cast himself on the ground and covered his face.

Through the drifting smoke, Merry heard the most horrible inhuman howl he had heard since he fought the Witch-King before the walls of Minas Tirith. It was coming from the direction the Tooks had gone! Merry charged through the garden, hand on his sword-hilt.

When Pippin left the group carrying little Faramir, he led Diamond all the way around the hill before stopping at an overlook just down from the big tree on top of the hillside. He set little Faramir down and put his hands on his hips.

"Faramir-lad," he began.

"Pippin, he couldn't've started the fire," Diamond said. "He was nowhere near the fire when we found him."

"I know that, Di." Pippin turned to his son. "Faramir, I know you're lying. I know why, too. You're trying to save Frodo-lad from a beating. I'm not even going to say you're wrong, because I don't want that to happen either. You know I don't believe in it. And you know that you're not going to get a whipping no matter what you do. So you're taking the blame for Frodo-lad." Pippin sighed. "But it's not fair for you to be punished for something your older c—friend did." Pippin had almost said 'cousin'. And how many times had Pippin gotten a strapping for something Merry did? From Merry, no less. Gah. The ghost of Saradoc walked again. "But lying isn't nice either, Faramir. I don't want you to make a habit of it. Nor of sacrificing yourself for your friend, either, because next time I might not know you're lying."

Faramir-lad's expression turned fearful. "You're not going to tell on him, are you?"

"I should. I really should. Because adults ought to be united against the kind of mischief that burns down homes. But no, I'm not going to. There is a place for violence, and sometimes it's necessary, but discipline isn't—" Pippin's head jerked around as he spotted movement. "The rabbit!" Pippin leapt and caught the rabbit by the ears. He landed hard, and the rabbit keened as Pippin awkwardly rose to his knees. "Di, help me hold the damn animal while I draw my sword."

Diamond first turned to Faramir-lad. "Shoo, lad, you don't want to see this. You're too young." Then she grabbed the bunny. "Go on, Faramir!" Diamond ordered. The boy ran around the side of the hill, farther from Bag End.

Pippin unsheathed his blade and slit the rabbit's throat. Its blood spurted onto his white sleeves. "Rabbit stew again," Pippin commented. "Sam'll be glad to know the last stray coney is going into the pot." Pippin laughed. "Interrupting a lecture on violence to slaughter a bunny. Well, at least I'm getting some use out of this old barrow-blade, though maybe its maker would've been ashamed to know it became a bunny bane, while two of its twins got used up stabbing the Lord of the Nazgul."

Diamond smoothed his hair for him. "I had better go find little Faramir." She ambled off in the direction her son had gone.

Pippin started back for Bag End with the dead rabbit. As he rounded the bend, Merry came running through the garden. He stopped in shock as he spotted Pippin, red-sleeved, his sword dripping gore.

"What did you do?!"

Pippin held up the rabbit. "I killed a rabbit." Then he took in Merry's wild-eyed expression, and his grip on the hilt of the sword of Rohan. "Oh, Merry, no," Pippin gasped. "You thought I hurt little Faramir?"

"Where is he?" Merry asked dangerously.

"With Diamond. Look!" Pippin shook the rabbit carcase. Drops of blood arced from it and fell among the daisies. "It's just a rabbit."

Merry took his hand off his sword, but his expression was dark as the hand went into his pocket. He pulled it out in a fist and put his hands behind him. Then the Voice came from him. "Tell me the truth! Where is your son?"

"Back there." Pippin gestured.

"Alive?" Merry asked, again with the Voice.

"Yes, alive, dammit Merry, I wouldn't hurt him. You know that. What the gharykhevekam are you doing?" Pippin cursed in the Black Speech of Mordor. "I know that feeling! You're using magic again. It's the most terrible compelling feeling! Like the commands of the Eye that come through the Palantir."

Merry's voice was normal as he said, "Sorry, Pippin. Yes, I was using it."

"Merry, what is it?" Pippin demanded. "What did you pick up on the road outside Bag End?"

Merry brought his hands around in front of him. He had taken it off again, and it was in the palm of his hand. There lay the Beautiful Thing, round and unadorned, perfect in its symmetry, golden as hazy memories of warm summer days of youth. Altogether precious.

Pippin gasped. "It can't be!" He fell to his knees. "It went into the fire! Sam said so. Frodo said so."

"It's not the One, Pippin." He closed his hand and put the Beautiful Thing back in his pocket. "It's the ring of Saruman. The one he made, in order to understand how the One was made. The power that it wields, that I wield when I wear it, is the power of Saruman's voice. The tooth of the serpent."

Pippin staggered upright again, bunny in one hand, sword in the other, both quite forgotten. "You found it out there, where I found you lying in the road. Where Saruman died."

"Yes."

"What are we going to do about it?" Pippin asked.

"I don't know, Pippin. I don't know."

End of Chapter Ten.


	11. Chapter 11

Passing for Underhill Chapter 11

Merry told Pippin to wait right there, and went and brought back a bucket of water for the rabbit butcher to clean up in. Meanwhile, Sam reappeared with his three naughty boys, and Diamond caught up with Faramir-lad. Soon the whole company was reassembled in the garden.

"Caught the rabbit," Pippin announced, holding up the dead bunny. Goldilocks started crying, which devolved into a coughing fit, and then little Faramir started crying too, with a similar effect, and this set off the baby. This in turn caused Elanor to start screaming vile curses in the Black Speech which she must have picked up from Pippin. This led to Sam hauling Elanor off around the hill where he had taken the boys, not without a backward hard look at Pippin.

"Stop, for the love of the Valar!" yelled Eldarion, getting up from the ground. "Enough, enough, there's been enough pain already today! Sam, come back! I command it!" Eldarion had never issued a princely order to any of the hobbits before. He was not certain he actually had the authority to do so, as the Shire was an independent principality under the protection of the Northern Crown, rather more like Rohan than like the princedoms of Dol Amroth or Ithilien. But Sam came back.

Eldarion said, "The first priority, now that the fire is out, is healing the afflicted. Let us go somewhere that can supply hot water, and I shall brew athelas. Would that I could call its power on myself, for I too have breathed the smoke. I shall begin with the children. I do not know if my endurance will hold long enough to treat all of you. However, if not, I will rest, and continue after."

Elanor looked at Eldarion with her hand over her heart, flushed and breathing rapidly. Rosie caught the love-light in Elanor's eyes and turned her face up to the heavens, as if to say, 'why me'? Estella, noticing Rosie's eye-rolling, dissolved into hysterical laughter.

"That makes good sense, Mr. Underhill," agreed Sam, ignoring the byplay between the lasses. "We'll go to Rosie's folk. The Cottons live nigh to the Hill."

So Eldarion set up his Miracle Working station on the Cottons' farm, and treated all the coughs. When he got to Frodo Gardner, he said, "There's something more here," and told him he would treat him again the next day. When it was finally Merry's turn, Eldarion commented, "The talisman still resists me. I am weary, but soon we must deal with this." Merry nodded and said nothing.

When he was done healing everyone, Eldarion was grey-faced with fatigue, and went to bed in the Cottons' house, not to arise 'til mid-afternoon the following day. When he emerged, and stood on the porch to stretch and take in the warm air of early autumn, he found a line of hobbits waiting for him. The fellow who had come to the door during the fire was the first in line, followed by an elderly matron, an embarrassed-looking young couple, and a toothless, skinny crone with a pet goat on a leash.

"Hullo," he said, trying to sound as hobbitish as possible. He was glad he had taken the trouble to wrap up his feet before coming outside. "And who would you be, and what's all this, then?"

"Are you the Miracle Worker?" Asked the first hobbit.

"Yes, that I am."

"Then you're who we're all needin' to see."

Eldarion nodded. "I shall do my best. But I will treat young Frodo first. I could not do all I should for him yesterday, in the rush of fire victims."

Eldarion returned to the house, and insisted that old Mrs. Cotton start a tea kettle for the brewing of kingsfoil before Eldarion would even eat breakfast, or tea, as may be. After he had been plied with rolls and bacon and fruit, Eldarion took over the kitchen, it being the only room which had not been pressed into service as a spare bedroom, and asked for Frodo Gardner to be brought to him.

Eldarion sent most of the others away, but Frodo-lad's parents stayed.

"Now, let us see what ails you, my friend," Eldarion said. "Allow me to examine you. Do not be embarrassed."

Frodo-lad said, "I think I know what you sensed," and pushed up a sleeve to reveal pus-filled sores. "I washed the bites, but I guess I didn't do it good enough."

"Well enough," Eldarion corrected absently, taking the arm. "Yes, they are infected. Rabbit bites?"

"Yeah."

"Why didn't you say something?" Sam asked.

"I tried to," said Frodo Gardner. "You didn't want to hear it."

"I will heal you," said Eldarion. He breathed on the leaves of athelas, and steeped them in the water, mumbling over the brew as he always did. Then he got a small knife from a kitchen drawer, and asked Rosie to bring a cup of brandy. He cleaned the knife and the arm with the brandy, then carefully punctured the sores and drained them, and finally washed the arm in the athelas water.

After healing Frodo-lad, Eldarion had the Cottons admit his petitioners one by one for healing. Then Eldarion went back to sleep.

"It's no good, his not eating, and doing nothing all day but treat patients," Sam said.

"Maybe it would be best to go elsewhere," Diamond suggested. "How did Bag End seem, when you went up there today with the cleanup crew, Sam?"

"It's uninhabitable," Sam replied. "And will be for days, probably, until we can get the smoke out of everything. Maybe longer than that, if we end up having to sort through and pitch most of what's in the north tunnel, and replace all the wallpaper, and wash all the rugs and the bedding, as well as scrub down all the surfaces and wash the clothes and the towels, and…" Sam sighed. "Not to mention drying out the floor in the tunnel. The north tunnel was never finished as a room, just excavated for storage, and that flooring was just planks laid right onto packed earth."

"Let's all go to Brandy Hall," said Estella. "We always planned to round out Eldarion's trip to the Shire by visiting our homes as well, not just Bag End. We'll just go a little ahead of schedule. First Brandy Hall and then the Great Smials, and then on to Bree, just like we always planned."

Sam nodded. "Alright. You take the children with you. I'll stay and oversee the work on Bag End."

"No, you go on, Sam," said Rosie. "I know how much it means to you, to visit with your friend Strider's son. I'll stay here in my mother's house 'til the old hole is fit to live in again. Mother and I so rarely get a chance to visit by ourselves, without the army of little lads and lasses. I'll keep the baby with me, but take the rest of the children on to Buckland and Tuckborough."

Sam brightened. "Oh! I hadn't thought of that. Sure, Rosie, have a good visit, and try not to work too hard."

So Rosie stayed at the Cottons' farm, to supervise the restoration of Bag End, while the Miracle Worker and his train moved on to Brandy Hall. Merry insisted that Estella ride in the wagon on top of a pile of down pillows. Eldarion, exhausted, borrowed part of her pile and slept.

Pippin rode his pony next to Merry, and asked quietly, "When are you planning on fessing up, Merry?"

"About what?"

"Don't give me that. About the ring, you ninny."

"It's not like it's one of the Great Rings, you know," Merry defended. "It wasn't made by Sauron. And who knows exactly when Saruman made it? He might not have turned evil by then. And anyway, he was never completely evil like Sauron."

"Oh, so he wasn't evil? Enjoyed your visit to the Ugluk Health Spa, did you? I admit, the cross country running was quite good for the legs. And the restricted diet, well, of a certainty I lost weight. Not so sure about the beauty regimen, though."

"Stow it, Pippin. I'll come clean if it's relevant. But I'm not planning to use it anymore, so what difference does it make?"

"I don't know, Merry. But it scares me. You've been a bit peculiar since you picked it up."

"I've been peculiar?!" Merry shouted, then at once lowered his voice to keep the conversation confidential. "You should talk. The only reason I was even able to hear it calling to me is because you frightened me out of my mind."

"I'm sorry, Merry. I said I was sorry, didn't I?"

"I know, Pippin. And I don't blame you, really. How much of a hypocrite would I be if I did? Since you never blamed me." Merry paused, and said even more softly, "Or at least, that's what you always say."

"I don't blame you. At least, not for anything that happened while we were both children. I wish you would have stood up to your father before he died, though. After we got back from the quest."

"I wish that too."

"But what I meant by peculiar," Pippin continued, "was when you confronted me in the garden. You used the Voice again. And how could you even think I would hurt my son?"

"Because you hurt me, Pippin."

"Oh, Merry…" Pippin's shoulders slumped.

"Don't say you're sorry again. I'm not accusing, I'm just explaining. You couldn't ever do it before. It wasn't in you. There are some certainties in life: the sun rises in the east, spring follows winter, what goes up must come down, cats don't lay eggs, pigs don't fly, and Pippin doesn't—doesn't whip my ass. It was an immutable law of nature."

"Nature," Pippin echoed. "It's in the natural order of the things for people to change."

"Oh no, Pippin, not that again. I never meant to brainwash you."

"Yes you did," Pippin said. Then he shook his head and said, "Where did that come from?" Then he answered himself, in a tone of startled revelation. "You had a need to make sure I would never flip you again. You told me not to want to, and—and I don't."

Merry covered his face with his hand. The rest of the ride passed in awkward silence. Soon the whole caravan was ensconced at Brandy Hall, which was not a hall but a rather large excavation in a rather small hill, with a two-level wooden façade around a large front door. Some of the newer rooms were actually built like a house of Men, on the second level behind the balcony. After the completely of the hall-like wooden front many centuries ago, the Brandybucks had begun building outbuildings and auxiliary guesthouses, of which the house at Crickhollow was one. However, there were plenty of guest rooms in the Hall itself.

The Tooks were given one suite with a sitting room and two bedrooms, and the Gamgees took over a branch of a side tunnel with six minor bedrooms ending at a parlor, onto which opened a larger bedroom, and a washroom. Sam scrambled to divide the six children's rooms between his nine children (baby Bilbo having remained with Rosie), without Rosie's help in sorting rivalries. He had never realized that his second youngest daughter Daisy couldn't stand her baby sister Primrose. Nor that Goldilocks felt the same way about both of them. Little Rose thought she was too old to be sharing with anybody, and all the boys thought Hammy was too young to share with them. Eventually Sam decided Daisy and Hammy were young enough for their genders to make no difference, and put them in together. Merry-lad and Pippin-lad went in one room, he kept one year old Primmy with him, and the rest of the children each got their own room. By the time he was done assigning rooms, he wished he had stayed at Bag End scrubbing soot off the ceiling.

Pippin had been to Brandy Hall several times since the old Master died, but he had avoided the corridor where Saradoc's old study had been. Now, though, he was curious about Merry's story of clearing it and burning its contents. So when he had settled in (which did not take long, as no one had packed any of the reeking contents of Bag End), he decided to go exploring. He hesitated a long time outside the door. Then he thought, "This is foolish. There aren't any cave trolls in there. What am I afraid of?" He turned the knob and went in.

He had half expected to see a mound of dirt in the middle of the room, but apparently Merry had ordered the ceiling shored up again. The room had been completely redecorated, with sky-blue paint on the walls and the new ceiling. Someone had added puffy white clouds, and a cheery yellow sun. Pippin realized the sun was painted right in the place where the hook used to be.

"I wonder, did Merry paint this himself?" Then Pippin answered his own question, just as he had done on the pony. "No, plenty of other people probably got hung up there and beaten. Anybody in Buckland could have felt the need to plaster something cheerful over this place. I wonder who… Dody painted that. How in burzum do I know that? Because I have to tell the truth."

Pippin rocked back on his heels. "Good heavens." He wondered if he could divine the answer to anything just by asking himself the question. He had a sudden urge to ask out loud how long he was going to live, but suppressed it. "The Voice. Merry ordered me to tell the truth. An order given in the Voice. And it isn't wearing off. In fact, it's getting stronger. When Merry asked me what difference it made if he kept the ring a secret, I didn't know. That was only yesterday."

"Pippin?" Merry stood at the open door. "Celandine said she'd seen you go down this corridor. What are you doing in here?"

"Discovering the secrets of wizardry." Pippin blinked, as surprised by his answer as Merry looked to be. "Apparently." Pippin gestured to the painted sun. "Dody, too, huh?"

Merry's eyebrows raised even higher. "How did you know who painted that?"

"Because I asked myself, and the answer came to me. You've made me into a soothsayer. True Took, that's me. Come in, Merry."

Merry walked into the room tentatively. "Did I do that with the Voice?"

"Yes. Still think it makes no difference if you keep it?"

Merry bit his lip. "I didn't realize the power would work like that. Power beyond my imagining, that's what the Voice promised me. I guess it was right. But I don't think I really want that kind of power."

"No, Merry, the only power you ever needed was right here." Pippin gestured to the room. "And right here." To himself, this time. "And here." He put his hand over Merry's heart.

"I never had any power in this room." Merry turned and walked a few paces away.

"Yes you did. More than I had, anyway."

"Oh, Pippin, I'm so sorry!" Merry started sobbing. He turned back to Pippin and buried his face in Pippin's shoulder. "I wanted to defy him. I wanted to refuse his orders. I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't brave enough."

Pippin started. For a few moments, he stood stock still. Then, awkwardly, he put his arms around Merry. "Shh, shh. He's dead now."

"Now that you've become True Took," Merry sniffled, "you aren't saying you don't blame me anymore."

"I don't blame you, Merry. There, do you finally believe me? By the power of Saruman's ring, I cannot lie."

"Prove it. Tell me how you feel about the Show."

"At the time it was the worst experience of my young life. Now it barely makes the top ten. How long do you think I can go on putting your father's face in my catalog of absolute evil, when I've seen the Eye of Sauron?"

"And me, Pippin? My part in the Show?"

"Merry—I liked it. Well, sometimes, some things. Sometimes I was afraid I was going to die. Sometimes I was confused, and didn't really understand what was happening. Sometimes you pushed me so far beyond my limits I stopped thinking at all. But sometimes I enjoyed it. And I want you to do it again."

"What?" Merry broke the semi-embrace.

"I want to be taken by you." Pippin turned away. "Please don't say 'what' again. The Voice is doing this. The Voice won't let me stop talking. I'm terribly embarrassed, and I never wanted you to know. I never even wanted to admit that to myself. We're both married, for heaven's sake. Not to mention that we're first cousins."

"It's not your fault, Pippin. You can't help what you felt. You can't help it if sometimes your body responded in pleasure."

"I know that! It's still embarrassing."

"For me, too. He knew, Pippin. He could see that sometimes I—I couldn't hide it, he was watching." Merry started to cry again, and his head went down on Pippin's shoulder once more. "He wanted me to become just like him."

"Oh, Merry. Aren't I the last person in Middle Earth who ought to have to comfort you about this?"

Merry stepped back and covered his face with his hands. "I'm sorry!"

"I know. But don't you see, Merry, what a fantastic opportunity you have now? To really let go, I mean. To let go of the past, to let go of your need for power. Just let it go."

Merry wiped his tears and asked shakily, "What do you mean?"

"Let go of your substitute power object. Let go of the ring."

Merry took a step back. "I haven't got the first clue how to destroy it. It wasn't made in Mordor, Mount Doom isn't the right place to take it. But who knows what is? Isengard is broken, its smithies turned into a lake. It might not even be possible."

Pippin stepped forward, closing the distance between them, and set trembling hands on Merry's arms. He smiled a little, trying to look reassuring. "Just give it up, Merry. You said you don't need it or want it, right?"

"Right. What should I do with it, then?"

"Give it to me, Merry."

Merry's eyes widened, and he stepped back and shook off Pippin's grasp. "No!"

"Give me the ring!" A strange look passed over Pippin's face, and his hand strayed to his sword-hilt.

"Get a hold of yourself, Pippin!" Merry danced back, out of grabbing range.

"It should have been mine! I'm the one who never had any power! Why should it always come to you? When's my turn?" Pippin drew his sword and advanced on Merry.

"Forgive me, Pip," Merry whispered. Then he barked, "Lay down and stay down!" The crack of the command echoed back from the unfurnished chamber.

Pippin dropped to the floor. His sword clattered on the paving stones, and he lay on his belly, still but for a slight shivering, face turned to the side, looking up at Merry with one white-rimmed eye. "How?" Pippin whispered. "That wasn't even the Voice. You aren't wearing the ring."

"No," Merry said softly. He kicked Pippin's sword away from him. "You were right. I don't need the Voice to have power. Not over you, anyway. You wonder how I'm doing this? How am I doing it, True Took?"

"You are able to interrupt the call of the ring because I want you to," Pippin answered, each word seemingly pulled from him with great effort. "Your own words are more powerful than the Voice because I want you to dominate me." Pippin shut his eyes tight, squeezing out tears. "Merry, I don't really want the ring. But the pathway that power uses to call to me is seared through my soul."

"I know, Pippin. I'm sorry. Is it safe to let you up now?"

"Yes. I am in possession of myself again. I'm not going to try to grab the ring."

"Then get up. I'm done."

The oft-repeated counterphrase worked even better than magic. Pippin stirred and climbed to his feet. "Valar! Merry. What are we going to do?"

"I don't know."


	12. Chapter 12

Passing for Underhill Chapter Twelve

Pippin left still trembling a little. Whatever had possessed him to draw steel on Merry? Well, that was simple to answer, and he did not need to be a soothsayer to guess it: Saruman's ring. But he really did not want it. He could not have said he didn't want it if that was not the truth. He was repulsed by the very idea of a Ring of Power still in the Shire, after all these years.

He went back to the Took suite, thinking only to cast himself into slumber and quiet the roiling thoughts within him. He found Diamond trying on some of Celandine's clothes, since she had left all but what she had on at Bag End, to be washed along with everything else. A stack of pastel blues and greens lay deflated over a chair. Diamond currently had on a pale pink chemise with a yellow bodice.

Diamond regarded her reflection in a gilt-framed mirror. "Does this dress make me look fat?"

"Yes." Pippin clapped both hands over his mouth.

"Ah!" Diamond peeled off the bodice and dress, and immediately substituted one of light blue. "What about this one? Do I look fat in this one?"

Pippin made a noise behind his hand.

Diamond pulled his hands away from his mouth. "If you have something to say, Pip, say it."

"I like you fat, Di."

"What?"

"If you weren't fat you wouldn't have such big gazongas." Pippin winced and put his hands over his mouth again.

Diamond looked like she was trying to decide whether to be angry or flattered. She raked her eyes over him, and noticed the empty scabbard. "Where's your sword gotten itself to?"

"I left it where Merry kicked it."

"What?"

Pippin turned away and put his hands over his mouth again. He said something behind his hands. Then he melted into the chair on top of the pile of dresses and sighed, "Please stop asking me things. I've become a soothsayer. I told Faramir-lad that lying wasn't nice, but by the Valar truth can be terrible!"

"I knew that!" said a high voice. Faramir was wearing a borrowed nightshirt a few sizes too large.

"Ah. Speak of the Faramir. Isn't it about your bed-time, lad?"

"Come tuck me in."

"Alright." Pippin got up and followed his son to the child's room.

"What are gazongas?"

Pippin held his hands over his mouth for a moment, stifling the automatic reply. Then he said, "Never you mind, son."

Little Faramir hopped into bed and sang, "Onward all you bed-bugs marching down the sheet! When you get to the bottom, please don't tickle my feet."

Pippin tucked him in and then went to his own bed, and blotted out the world with sleep.

The next day, everyone rested, and ate a lot (naturally, being hobbits), and kept the conversation light by mutual unstated accord. The following day, miracle-seekers turned up at Brandy Hall. It started with just two, an elderly fellow and a local laborer. The next day, the elderly fellow's five good friends came seeking the same miracle of healing that Eldarion had worked for him. The next day there was a whole crowd of local people, and the prince locked himself in his room. Sam took on the task of organizing the miracle seekers, and instructed the Brandybucks to admit only one per day to the Hall, so that Mr. Underhill could recover his strength between miracles. This schedule seemed to work fine, but Sam kept a close eye on Eldarion to make sure he was not overtaxing himself.

On the sixth day, at dinner, Merry presented Eldarion with a bag of trinkets, coins, pretty rocks, and a tiny wooden case with nothing in it. "That's your cut," he said.

Eldarion blinked at him for a moment. Then understanding came to him. "Your door-wardens charge admission to see me?"

"Sure. Keeps down the crowds."

"I did not realize, when I set out on this adventure, that 'Traveling Miracle-Worker' would be such a nuisance as a title."

"Well, it's a good title," Merry said. "And it's true, too. You are a Miracle Worker." Merry traded a smile with Estella.

"Do not misunderstand me, Merry. I am happy to help, you and Estella or anyone. It is only that the petitioners are so relentless."

"Just wait 'til you're, um, until you have your father's title. Then they'll really be endless."

"I fervently hope that will not be for a very long time." Eldarion stirred the contents of the bag a little. "There is another trinket of which we should speak, at some more private time."

"There is nothing to say," Merry said.

Eldarion held his peace, at this public dinner with all the various denizens of Brandy Hall. The next afternoon, Eldarion went to his usual after lunch miracle session in the nook off the kitchen, which he had chosen for its proximity to the fire, teapots, bowls, and towels. The miracle seeker admitted by the Brandybucks was a healthy looking tween. He had shiny, curly brown hair, and wore a nondescript white shirt, and trousers and suspenders of dark brown, but there was something most unhobbitlike about the light in his eyes: keen; not sad but certainly not merry; almost predatory.

"Good afternoon," Eldarion greeted him in the hobbitish way. "For what do you seek healing?"

"I seek no healing, esteemed Miracle Worker," replied the young fellow. "I wish only to look upon the legend and carry word of what transpires in the Shire back to my home in Bree. Having spoken to several of your patients, I come to implore you to travel to Bree when next you journey. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Merlin Tunnelly, of the Bree Tunnelly's. My second cousins Robin and Jay, both being of great age, suffer in the hands from the affliction of which you have cured many, here in the Shire."

"I see. As it happens I do plan to travel to Bree, when I leave the Shire." Eldarion wondered about Merlin's speech pattern. It was very like Eldarion's own, which he had learned at his mother's knee, and therefore was rather archaic even by the standards of Gondor. He had been around no one but Shire-hobbits for weeks now, and Merlin's phraseology rang oddly on his ear. Perhaps hobbits spoke differently in Bree.

"Glad am I to hear it." Merlin leaned in a little and looked at him from under his eyebrows, in a way that suggested the fellow was used to having a much bushier pair. "The fee for admittance to an audience with you appears to function on a sliding scale. I hear your assistants accepted a river stone from one poor fellow, but held up a prosperous local farmer for an offering of gold." Merlin's voice changed. He was no longer seeming to make small-talk. Now his voice was more deep and melodious than anything a young hobbit's vocal chords should be able to produce. It was riveting, compelling. "Tell me, have you perchance any jewelry or other such trinkets? If so, I would pay well."

Eldarion suspected the strange hobbit might be asking about the ring, and he wanted to call for help or get out of the room. But he found himself answering, "Yea, trinkets I have in abundance, but not the one you seek." Then Eldarion leapt up, and found his will was his own again. He ran.

Seeking safety in numbers, Eldarion sped to the great room, where there were always at least a few Brandybucks nibbling on tidbits, playing at hedge-men (a game played with wooden markers), knitting, or some such thing. He ran so fast his right foot-rag came off. Eldarion was so intent on reaching help that he took no thought for the uncovering of his hairless foot.

"Aid me!" Eldarion called. "There is an odd force at work!"

Merlin came in right after him, and said, "I had no wish to offend. I am a Breelander, and know not the ways of the Shire." Then his voice changed again, and became compelling. He addressed the occupants of the great room. "Go back to your own pursuits. This does not concern you."

But this order had a contrary effect on Pippin, who had been deep into a game of hedge-men with elderly Seredic. Pippin shot to his feet. "The Voice! I know the feel of that magic!" He looked wildly around for a swift runner, and spotted Celandine, just a few years past her majority. "Celandine, find Merry quick!"

Despite Merlin's use of the wizardly Voice, Pippin's outburst drew the attention of everyone in the room. "What's wrong?" Celandine asked.

"Magic! Tell Merry someone's using magic, and it isn't him! Go! Fast!"

As Celandine hurried off, old Seredic took in the scene and pointed at Eldarion's feet. "He's no hobbit! What is he?" 

"Elf-Man," Pippin replied, unable to resist the truth spell. "But don't be afraid! You've all seen him work miracles of healing! He means no harm to any hobbit. It's Merlin we ought to be cautious of!"

Merlin tried the Voice again. "I am merely a simple Breelander, journeying in the Shire to see the Miracle Worker."

"Don't believe it!" Pippin exclaimed. "He's using magic again!"

"What about Mr. Underhill's magic?" asked Seredic. "He uses magic too."

"No, it's not magic, it's the grace of Melian," Pippin said. He did not know what that meant, but it must be the truth.

Merlin seemed to know what it meant, though. "Elf-Man! You mean he is of the line of Luthien! Who is he?"

"Prince Eldarion." Pippin clapped his hands over his mouth too late.

"Pippin!" Eldarion cried.

"And who are you, Merlin?" Pippin asked, then answered his own question. "You're Saruman!"

"Saruman?! What a ridiculous idea," scoffed Merlin. "Saruman is a full sized Man with a long white beard. How do you explain my stature and furry feet, if I am not a hobbit?"

Pippin smirked. Evidently Merlin did not know that asking Pippin a question would result in the truth, whether Pippin had previously known the answer or not. "That's fake foot fur. You're no more a hobbit than Eldarion is."

Merlin glanced at his feet. "How—" Then he scowled at Pippin. "It matters not how you know that," growled the avatar. "Perhaps the feet were a mistake. The necessity of this disguise I will soon outlive, however. I would not be locked into the form of a hobbit for all eternity, even to recover my ring. No, I shall grow to resemble my former incarnation, in time. In the meanwhile, I shall tell Men whom I meet that I age backwards."

"Then you are Saruman," said Eldarion.

Merlin whirled and strode for the exit. "Make way!" A young Brandybuck hastily stepped aside, although by the look on his face he did not know why he was obeying.

"Kherekh burzum!" shouted Pippin.

Saruman winced and stumbled as if struck. Then he scrambled up and ran out of Brandy Hall.

"Well, will you look at that," Pippin commented. "Cursing hurts him. No, curses hurt him. They are a form of magic. I'll never take them lightly again!"

Merry and Celandine arrived, out of breath, just as the front door of the Hall closed.

"Too late!" Pippin cried. "None of us could go after him. He said 'make way' and we all did!"

"He will return," said Eldarion.

"Oh yes, he'll be back alright," agreed Pippin. "And we'll be ready for him. It's time for a council of war, Merry. Unless you think the Brandybucks can shoot him from the walls."

"Nay," said Eldarion. "We dare not hunt him until we have countered the effects of his magic, lest he turn the hunters on each other."

"Too right," Pippin said.

"Who was he?" Merry asked.

"Saruman."

Merry's eyes widened, and he involuntarily put a protective hand over his pocket. "Council of war. Yes."

End of Chapter Twelve


	13. Chapter 13

Passing for Underhill Chapter Thirteen

Reluctantly, Merry brought some of the other Brandybucks in on his council of war: his uncle and near-agemate Berilac, and Seredic's progeny Doderic, Ilberic, and Celandine. He left out most of the others, as being too old, too young, or too unreliable. His distant cousin Merimas was a stout-hearted fellow, but completely unable to keep a secret from his sisters, who were the biggest blabbermouths in Buckland. In addition, Doderic's wife Holly was there, perched (most disgustingly, in Merry's opinion) on the arm of Dody's wingchair, with her legs over her husband's lap. The other occupants of the library were Sam, Pippin, Diamond, Estella, and Eldarion.

"I've put this off for far too long," Merry began, drawing a sharp glance from Sam, who remembered the line from Bilbo's fairwell speech. "Oh, dear. I didn't mean to make that comparison." Merry waved a hand, as it to disperse smoke. "Some of you already know this. I'm not going to go into how and why this happened. Pippin knows, but please don't ask him. In fact, everyone, I know this soothsayer bit is a little odd for him, so it would be best not to ask him anything, unless it's really important. Back to the subject. I know why Saruman was able to take physical form again, after we thought we killed him at the Battle of Bywater. And I know what he wants in the Shire. Both puzzles have the same answer: this."

Merry pulled Saruman's ring out of his pocket and opened his hand. Once again he was struck by the beauty of the circle of gold. It was truly perfect, glorious and serene. How could any trouble come from such a Beautiful Thing?

Sam put a hand over his heart and made an inarticulate noise.

Eldarion said, "His life force was bound to the ring and the ring survived."

"Yes," Merry said. "Sam, are you alright?"

Sam emitted a most un-Samlike whimper.

"Oh—sorry, Sam. I know it looks like the One. But it's Saruman's ring."

Sam coughed, inhaled, and rubbed his face. "You gave me a right start, Mr. Merry. I never thought to see that thing again, and that's a fact!"

"It has completely different powers," Merry said. "So far I've only discovered one power, actually, the power of Saruman's Voice. That's how Pippin became a soothsayer. I wasn't thinking, and I told him to tell the truth while I had it on. I didn't know it wouldn't wear off."

"I remember the Voice of Saruman," Pippin said. "The real thing, I mean. In Isengard. I remember how people quoted from what he said, later, as if stating their own beliefs. But I also remember how King Theoden resisted the Voice. And other people."

"Yes," Merry agreed. "The Voice of Saruman isn't puppetry. You resisted it yourself, Pippin, when the new Saruman chased Eldarion into the great room, and told everyone to go about their business."

Pippin nodded. "Clearly, having experienced the Voice before gave me an advantage. I knew the touch of magic when I heard it, or felt it, or whatever it was, because it felt exactly like when you used the ring."

"Is that the answer?" Merry asked. "Is it that simple— use the ring, use the Voice, on everyone here, and we all become immune?"

"Not immune," Pippin said. "But certainly forewarned. Like smelling fire. We'd all have burned up in Bag End if we didn't already know what that odor meant." Pippin paused, looked like he had a lemon in his mouth, and then added, "And not 'we all'. That would not help the wielder. Unless you're planning to share it."

"Share it?!" Merry shrilled. Then he closed his eyes for a moment, took a breath, and collected himself. "Sorry. But I think not. You really scared me last week, Pip."

"I scared myself, Merry," Pippin replied. "So much so that I never went back in there to get my sword. Not that I was terribly anxious to go in there at all, after my curiosity was satisfied."

"You left it there?"

"Yes."

"Well, we can't have that. With Saruman's return, we need all the swords and swordsmen we have, and that's not all that many to start with."

"I really don't want to go in there, Merry."

"I know. Nobody around here does. I know! Send Diamond to fetch it, this is her first time here, no bad memories."

"Where is it?" Diamond asked.

"In the study," Merry replied quietly, looking down in embarrassment.

"What study?" Diamond asked. "I've explored all over Brandy Hall, or Faramir has and I followed him, anyway. Aside from the desks in the corner of this library, I never saw anything that looked like a study."

Merry cleared his throat. "The room with the painted sun."

"Oh! That place looked quite pretty. Why is everyone afraid of it?"

Pippin clamped both hands over his mouth and stifled his reply.

"Please don't ask that question in front of Eldarion, Diamond," Merry said quietly. "He's only thirteen, remember, despite his imposing height."

Pippin let his hands fall with a sigh. "Not while I'm in the room, anyway. I hate this truth spell. Can't you reverse it?" Then Pippin answered his own question, "No, the Voice was never meant to be undone. If you try I might end up with the opposite condition, unable to say anything but lies." Pippin made a face. "You've really got to be careful with that thing, Merry."

"I know. I'm afraid to experiment with it, but countering the Voice of Saruman with the Voice of Saruman's Ring seems to be our best bet so far. Maybe not directly, I doubt I could use the Voice on Saruman. But if I try it on someone, they might be less susceptible to Saruman's own Voice. Should I try it, Pippin?"

"No," Pippin replied, surprising himself. "Oh, I thought I was going to say yes. But that kind of power is tricky. Use it and you leave yourself open to the ring's own will. And the same for the person you use it on. Oh, is that why—no, I'm not going to ask myself a question!"

Sam, fully recovered from his earlier fit of apoplexy, weighed in with, "Mr. Pippin's got that right, of a certainty. That might not be the One Ring, but it can't be an accident that it looks just like it. Saruman must've been trying to imitate Sauron. And if there's one thing I know for sure about the Ring, it's this: the more you use it, the more it takes control of you."

"Maybe that's the trap," Berilac said. "Maybe that's what Saruman wants you to do. Use the ring, and become its slave. And so, his."

Merry nodded slowly. "Maybe it is."

"So what do we do, Merry?" asked Holly. "If we can't use it, how do we defend ourselves from Saruman? If that is Saruman; Merlin certainly looked like a hobbit to me."

"As do I," said Eldarion.

"I don't know," Merry said. "What should we do, Pippin?"

"Destroy it."

"How?"

"Melt it down."

"How, melt it down?"

"In a forge."

"What forge?"

"Any forge." Pippin sat up and touched his lips. "Any forge!" he repeated excitedly. "Merry, it's not like the One Ring, it was just made in an ordinary foundry. Well, not ordinary, it was the one the Uruk-hai cast their swords in. Any place that can melt down ordinary gold can destroy it. We don't even have to leave the Shire! The smithy in Stock could do it!"

"Stock!" exclaimed Estella. "Why, that's nearby!"

"It is!" A smile spread across Merry's face.

"We just have to get there," Sam said. "But what about Saruman? He'll try to stop us, surely. We're no closer to figuring out how to protect ourselves from him. And his Voice can't be his only power, he is a wizard, you know."

"We have to chance it," Merry said. "The more time we take to prepare, the more time Saruman has to prepare, too."

"Prepare what?" Celandine asked.

"Fireworks," Pippin said. "Oh no! Any wizard could make them. And I have a feeling they could be made very dangerous, and not pretty at all, if a mind like Saruman's was behind it."

"We must set out at once," Merry said. "Or, as soon as may be. We should send for ponies. We should see to the defense of the Hall first, though. Saruman may come back here."

A boom and a shudder ran through Brandy Hall.

"Saruman!" Estella screamed. "Is it Saruman, Pippin?"

"Yes. He prepared before he scouted the Hall."

"Quick!" Merry cried, jumping to his feet. "Get weapons, and get to—Berilac, bar the front door, go now! Dody, get archers in the windows. Di, no, Celandine, you know where you're going, run for Pippin's sword. Sorry, but go! Ilberic, sound the horn-cry! Then gather all the lads and get them kitchen knives or anything that's to hand! Travelers, with me!" Merry charged out to the great room, barely a dozen steps behind Berilac.

The door gave way while assorted Brandybucks were still streaming into the great room. It was not a battering ram, but some kind of acrid smoke that had taken down the door.

Saruman, still looking like a hobbit but with his fake foot fur gone, and now wearing white robes, strode through the drifting smoke ahead of three hobbit followers. One of them was Ted Sandyman.

"Ted! You're no good after all!" Sam shouted. "I should a' known it!"

Merry declared, "We're all wise to you now, Saruman. You'll find it harder to toy with us a second time!"

Saruman shook his head and laughed evilly. "How little you understand." He projected the Voice: "Where is my ring?"

"Merry has it," Pippin said, then clapped a hand over his mouth too late.

"Ah," Saruman said, turning to Pippin. "I remember you, dangling after the grey fool at Isengard. So you are susceptible to my Voice. Good, good." He pointed at Estella, standing next to Pippin. "Bring her to me."

"Never!" Pippin cried, but his limbs responded quite differently. To his horror, he found himself taking Estella's arm and pulling her toward Saruman. "Ai! Merry, stop me! I can't help myself!"

"Grab them!" Merry ordered, and Berilac, nearest to the Pippin, tried to stop the larger, stronger hobbit. Pippin tripped him and dragged Estella to Saruman.

"Very good," Saruman said. Estella struggled, but was afraid of exerting herself too much, worrying about her baby. She knew, too, that Pippin overmatched her quite badly.

Merry started forward, drawing his sword grimly, and the Brandybucks followed him, along with Sam, and Eldarion, and even Frodo Gardner, who had come with the lads from the weapontake at the kitchen. It looked for a moment like a general charge into battle.

Then Saruman yelled, "Hold!" And everyone stopped. Saruman pointed at Merry. "Give me the ring."

Merry jerked, but then said, "No. It's mine. My Beautiful Thing."

"Give it to me or I'll make your friend here kill your wife."

Estella cried, "Let go!" and stomped on Pippin's foot. Pippin did not move.

"Let her go, Pippin!" Merry growled.

A spasm passed through Pippin's body, but he held on. "I'm trying! Do something! Counter him. Use the ring!"

Sam yelled, "No! If you use the ring its maker will have you!"

Estella uppercutted Pippin in the nethers. He did not even flinch.

"Kill her," Saruman ordered.

Pippin's shaking hand went to his still-empty scabbard. Then it went around Estella's neck. "Do something!" Pippin shrieked.

Merry did the only thing he could think of. He shouted, "Pippin! Lay down and stay down!"

Pippin let go of Estella and dropped to the floor. Estella ran back to the other hobbits, a hand protectively supporting her belly. She ran through the line and kept going, fleeing into a side tunnel.

The Brandybucks had all blanched when they heard the Phrase. A few of them had even crouched partway down, although the order had not been directed at them. Now they stood up, some shaking with fear, some shaking with rage, some red-faced with shame.

Saruman raised an eyebrow at Pippin, lying still on the floor. "Very clever. His training must have been extreme, to override the commands of the Voice. Or perhaps begun very early?"

"Both," Pippin said. "Oh damn." He could not cover his mouth with his hand while holding the position, belly down, arms and legs spread, the right side of his face resting on the cool stone floor.

"You've lost, Saruman," Merry said. "You'll never get the ring. Go, leave the Shire and I'll let you live."

"Oh no, I have not lost yet. I still hold you and your army at bay. You cannot advance. I know it would not last if I had my minions attack you, or tried to take the ring by force. Else, the Battle of Helm's Deep would have been rather short. But as long as you are not directly threatened, my Voice keeps you still. As yours keeps him. What a fascinating project it must have been. When was the first time Merry made you lie down for him, Pippin?"

"When I was eight," Pippin replied. Then he squeezed his eyes shut. "Oh, Valar, make him shut up."

The assembled Brandybucks stared in dawning horror at Merry.

"Really," Saruman said. "I did not begin my conditioning of Grima until he was fifteen. I thought I would break his mind, if I began any earlier. He would have been useless to me without a quick wit. But perhaps that was not a consideration in your case. And what of maintenance? Tell me, Pippin, when was the last time, other than right now, that Merry made you lie down for him?"

"Last Monday," Pippin squeaked.

At just that moment, Celandine ran in with Pippin's sword. Berilac made the connection, "Good heavens, the study. Merry, what are you?"

"N—" Merry started to respond to Berilac. Then his eyes widened and he looked at Celandine. Celandine, who had not been there when Saruman yelled 'hold'. "Attack! You're the only one who can!"

Celandine did not hesitate. With a valkyriesque yell, she brandished the sword and ran straight at Saruman. "Stay!" the wizard commanded. But Celandine did not stop. She was screaming too loudly to be affected by the Voice.

Saruman threw powder on the ground, and vanished in a puff of smoke, along with his three henchmen, and Pippin.

The bespelled hobbits all took a step or two forward as the spell broke. Merry hid his face in his hands. "Saruman took Pippin!"

End of Chapter 13


	14. Chapter 14

Passing for Underhill Chapter Fourteen

"Why could we all move as soon as Saruman left? Why aren't we all still spellbound?" Ilberic asked. "The enchantment on Pippin was permanent."

"I don't know," Merry said. "Maybe Saruman knows how to limit his own magic. Maybe the ring is stronger. Maybe it only works like that on Pippin. Because the order came from me."

Ilberic looked away. Some of the other Brandybucks were frankly staring, and Celandine looked away and shuffled her feet.

"Don't look at me like that! It's not my fault. Please, Ilby, Celandine, everyone, don't be afraid of me."

Berilac said, "You know what we're all thinking, Merry: like father, like son."

It was Merry's turn to look away uncomfortably. "Later. We'll deal with that later. I don't know if Saruman can really teleport or if he just distracted us with the flash of light and is running away on foot. Scouts should go after him. Try to get Pippin back. Or at least find out where Saruman has gone. Yes, that's it. Go out by twos. If Saruman stops anywhere that looks like he's going to be there for a while, one come back and tell us, the other stay and watch. Divide yourselves into pairs."

"Not you, Frodo-lad," said Sam. "Stay here with me. We don't know this country. Let the Brandybucks do the scouting. And that goes double for you, Eldarion."

As the first brace of Brandybucks slipped out into the countryside, Diamond came running into the great room. "Eldarion! Estella's in labor!"

"It's too soon!" the healer screeched, panic in his eyes. "Lead me!" As he and Diamond ran off, he shouted back over his shoulder, "Someone bring my herbs and kit!"

Merry pointed at Celandine. "Get the healer's gear." Then he ran after Eldarion.

Estella had collapsed in a dusty parlor. She lay panting on a couch now, but there was an ominous wet spot in the wool rug. Eldarion, kneeling before Estella, looked up frantically at Merry. "Never have I healed someone I can neither see nor touch! I know not how to find him! I can feel him, but I cannot hear him in my mind— I do not know how to do this!"

Diamond put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "Your magic will work when you brew the kingsfoil."

"Yes," Merry jumped to agree, "Celandine's bringing your bag. Your powers work with the herb, you'll do fine."

"No," groaned Estella. "It's over. My water broke." Her face ran with sweat.

"I will heal him!" Eldarion screamed.

"It can't be over," Merry said. "Not after all we've been through to get this far."

Celandine blew in like a tempest with Eldarion's kit. "I sent Meli to the kitchen for hot water." She distributed the other supplies next to Eldarion.

Estella gasped, rolled halfway off the divan and planted her feet. A mess like a jarful of grape jelly hit the floor.

"I do not know what to do!" Eldarion shrieked. "Get a midwife!"

"It's too late for that," Estella panted. "The baby is gone. I can feel it. I'm empty. Just save my womb, Eldarion." Then blood splashed under her dress, and she swooned.

"Estella!" Merry cried.

Eldarion caught her and set her back on the couch. "Where is that water? I must save her now!"

Merry held Estella's hand, whispering entreaties, his face a mask of grief.

Eldarion set a hand on Estella's brow and closed his eyes. Estella's breathing steadied, but she did not wake up. "Estella, Estella, come back," Eldarion called softly. "Here my voice, come back." He looked up at Merry, and said raggedly, "Call her."

"'Stella? Wake up, Estella." Merry sobbed, "It's not working, is it?" When Eldarion did not reply, Merry said, "Would—would more power help?"

"More power is coming," Eldarion said. "Athelas needs to steep to release its properties. Could I but have one wish, it would be that water would boil faster."

Merry shook his head. "Not that kind." He took the ring from his pocket. "Will it help or harm to call her with the Voice?"

"I do not know," replied Eldarion. "Now indeed do we miss our soothsayer."

"I'm going to try it," Merry resolved. He put on the ring. Instantly the world was plunged into shadow and chaos. Everything was a queasy fluttering like pennants on a smoking battlefield. "Estella, come back to me." He heard his own voice distantly, and over it, oddly melted into it, Saruman's Voice issued from the glowing circle of fire on his hand. "Live, Estella. Wake up. Return to health and hope."

Estella stirred a little.

"It is enough," Eldarion proclaimed. "The worst is over. Or, well, I should say, she will live. It remains to be seen what the touch of the ring has done to her. That power was never made for healing."

Merry bowed his tear-streaked face over Estella's hands.

Melilot rushed in with a steaming teapot and bowl, and set them down by Eldarion. The prince began his routine.

Saruman's lair looked like an ordinary hobbit house. Not a hobbit hole; Pippin noted windows in all three of the visible walls, and more sunlight pouring in from an open door down the corridor. They were not underground.

Two of Saruman's minions went off on some errand. Saruman, still looking very much like a hobbit, walked around the prone Pippin, who got a good look at Saruman's fake foot fur. It had been artfully applied. Even from close up, he could not have told it from the real thing but for his soothsayer's gift.

The third goon asked Saruman, "You want I should help you with him, Merlin?"

"Nay. I believe I shall enjoy dealing with him myself." Saruman put a foot on Pippin's ribcage and leaned. Then he stomped hard. There was an audible pop, and Pippin grunted and closed his eyes tight. "Interesting," Saruman breathed.

To his henchman, he said offhandedly, "You may build up the fire, Carl. Place the poker in it."

"Sure thing, boss."

Saruman bent down and removed Pippin's clothing, lifting an arm here, a leg there. Pippin did not resist. When Saruman let Pippin's arm fall out of position, Pippin moved only to resume his pose. "What intriguing reactions," Saruman commented.

The minion came over to look. "Quite the collection of scars, eh Merlin?"

"Indeed," the wizard agreed. "Clearly, it would be pointless to beat him."

"Too bad." Carl scratched and shrugged. "Got me a taste for that kind of sport, while your Chiefship was in charge of the Shire. The Big Men at the Lockholes let me do a lot of the whippings for them. Like it was a chore they got tired of, you might say. Well, not all of them, some of the Men were right enthusiastic about it."

"Ah. There will be 'sport'. My fighting Uruk-hai used the same term. For me this is an intellectual puzzle, a scientific experiment. To probe the limits of mental conditioning. However, that does not exclude the enjoyment of the exercise." Saruman glanced at the hearth. "The poker will not yet be ready. Tell me, Carl, have you or Ted or Pressy a taste for the male of your species?"

Pippin's eyes opened wide. "Kherekh burzum!"

Saruman flinched. Pippin grinned up at him, and fired off a string of all the bluest curses he knew in the Black Speech of Mordor. Saruman staggered back, batting at the air as if fighting unseen foes. His skin peeled and blood ran from his eyes. "Carl, gag him!"

Carl picked up Pippin's own shirt, tore off a sleeve, and stuffed it into Pippin's mouth. Then he bound it fast with Pippin's suspenders.

Saruman grated, "Very clever, Peregrin Took. But your weapon is silenced now." Saruman started to whirl off dramatically, then moderated his steps. Pippin hoped that meant the evil sorcerer was dizzy.

At the door, Saruman paused and said, "If any of you care to use him before I begin the burning, I shall be occupied for at least an hour, fixing this damage." He turned back once more. "Oh, and Pippin. If you choose to rise and leave, no one here will stop you by force. It would ruin my experiment if I had you restrained. This is all to see how long, and under what circumstances, you will stay down." Then accursed wizard left, to lick his wounds, Pippin presumed.

Pippin tried to curse again, but the improvised gag was effective. 'Oh, well,' Pippin thought, 'the cursing was good while it lasted'.

Saruman seemed to have been completely diverted from trying to get the ring. Pippin wondered how long he could provide a distraction, and if Merry could get to a smithy and destroy the ring before Saruman lost interest in torturing Pippin.

Pippin resolved to stay down as long as possible. Every minute he purchased gave Merry more time to reach Stock. And with the gag in place, Pippin could not accidentally reveal their plan. He could not have arranged a more perfect diversion if he had done it on purpose.

At that moment, Merry had no thought of reaching Stock. He stayed by Estella's side, where she had been moved to their bedchamber, while she slept fitfully, waking occasionally to ask for water.

His scouts returned at nightfall, but Merry would not go out to them, or hear them. Berilac and Sam took their reports. They had found nothing.

In the morning, Sam came to Merry and said gently, "Merry, Eldarion is here. He wants to give Estella another treatment. Get some rest now. Eldarion will tend her." Merry allowed himself to be led away, and settled on a sofa for a short nap. When he awoke, he found Sam waiting for him. "Your cook brought up a light breakfast for you, Mr. Merry. Have something to eat. I know you're in the depths of despair right now, but we've a quest we can't set aside, and a wizard to fight."

"Quest?" Merry blinked.

"To destroy the ring. If you've forgotten, even a stone troll would forgive you, what with your worriting over Estella and all. But you've still got it, Saruman still wants it, and Stock still has a blacksmith shop not a day's ride from here."

"I can't destroy it!" Merry protested. "What if I need it again? The Voice saved Estella. It made the difference, while we were waiting for the hot water for the athelas. Even Eldarion said so."

"Oh, now Mr. Merry, I know you mean well and all, but do you know what old Gandalf said about the One? I overheard this eavesdropping, and read it again in Mr. Frodo's book. Gandalf said, 'the way of the ring to my heart is by pity, and the desire of strength to do good'. Maybe I don't have that exact, but you take my meaning, sir."

Merry sighed in frustration. "It's not the One Ring. It's not even close. It has different powers, and an altogether different maker."

"But it was made as a copy of it," Sam said. "It had to have been, like Eldarion said."

"Gandalf wore a Ring of Power himself. Just because the One was evil, doesn't mean they all are. And it's isn't even a real Ring of Power, just a cheap knockoff."

"You're saying it's useful, and it hasn't shown itself to be very evil in your hands yet, and you want to keep it."

"Yes. That's what I'm saying."

"And don't you think I've heard all that before?"

Merry looked away. "It's not the One Ring."

"It's promising you things, isn't it?" Sam said. "Each to his own dreams. A long and happy future with Estella, and lots of children, is that it?"

"Yes," Merry whispered.

"And what would Middle-earth be like today, if that was what Frodo had chosen?"

"Oh Sam! It's not the same!"

"It is!" Sam insisted. "It's true it's not the One Ring. It's true it wasn't made by Sauron. But the power of the One came from its maker, Sauron, who was a Maia. And the power of Saruman's ring also comes from its maker, a Maia. Eldarion explained all that. Don't you see, Merry? With Sauron gone, and with Gandalf gone, and Galadriel, and all the most powerful elves and all the other wizards, Saruman is the only really powerful being left. Don't you see it, Mr. Merry? He'll take the ring back. Then he'll be Sauron. He'll be the Dark Lord. Just like Gandalf feared he would become, if he took the One Ring. And Galadriel, she was afraid she'd become a Dark Queen. And she wasn't even a Maia."

"I can't deal with this now," Merry whispered. "I can't go off to Stock, or fight wizards, or save Middle-earth, while Estella hangs by a thread."

"It's hard, Mr. Merry. Cruel hard. But if you can't do it, you're bounden to give it to someone who can."

Merry jumped up. "You want it for yourself!"

"No! Merry, think! It's me, Sam. I took the One Ring once. And then I gave it back."

"You what?" Merry asked, flopping back into his overstuffed chair. "Did I miss something when the minstrels of Gondor sang about the Ring of Doom?"

Sam snorted. "Minstrels. I suppose I ought to let more people read the Red Book. Eldarion wants me to have copies made. Yes, Merry, I took it. I took the Ring from Frodo. I wore it. I used it. And then I gave it back. It wasn't even very hard."

"Dear me, Sam. I never knew that."

"Berilac's already called together a company for the road. The Brandybucks are armed and ready. Your pony is saddled. Will you ride to Stock with me, and save the world?"

Merry barked an odd laugh. "When you put it that way, how can I refuse?"

End of Chapter Fourteen


	15. Chapter 15

Passing for Underhill Chapter Fifteen

In the silence of his exhaustion, too spent to scream, there were little sounds: breaths—his own—too rapid and not nearly rhythmic enough; the steps of bare feet, Saruman and his minions walking around; the crackle of the fire in the hearth; the sound of wind in the trees coming from an open window.

Pippin thought, 'I can't stand this. Yes I can. Every minute I endure buys Merry more time to destroy the ring. I can't go another minute. Every second I stay down buys more time to destroy the ring. One more moment. One more. One more. One more. One more. Have I lasted another minute yet? One more. One more. One more. Will I know when the ring is destroyed? Will Saruman die when it's gone, like Sauron died when the One Ring went into the fire? Or will Saruman's being in physical form keep him alive until he's killed outright? One more moment. One more. One more. See? I could endure another minute. And I can go another one, too. Don't think of lasting longer than that. One moment at a time. Where is Merry? Is he coming to rescue me? No, no, surely he is on his way to Stock. One more moment. Enough! I can't, I can't, I can't take this another moment! I'm going to get up now. Oh, damn. I'm not strong enough. Oh, kherekh burzum. I think I'm going to swoon. I think I'm going to stop breathing.'

"Merlin, sir? I think he's dead." That was Carl, Pippin observed.

Saruman felt Pippin's neck. "No, not dead. But a curious reaction. Mark you how he began to breathe rapidly, and then stopped. A trained, involuntary response, I believe. Probably designed for just this purpose, to simulate death. I wonder why? Curious. What a fascinating creation he is. I look forward to plumbing his depths. Bring ice from the ice house, draw a bath, put the ice in it, and throw him in. It may awaken him. If not, at least it will stop the action of the burns. I have no wish to kill him yet. He will provide many weeks of fascinating study, if we take care."

"You want we should do something about the internal burns too, then, Mr. Merlin?" Carl asked.

"Hmm. I suppose so, yes. He must eat, if he is to last more than a few days. Yes, ice him inside as well. Give him no solid food for the next few days. He may have cider."

"Very good, sir." Carl clomped off, and in a few moments his voice came from the open window, "Hi! Ted! Give me a hand with these buckets, will you? I'll need help picking up that there Took, so you might as well come in with me."

Two sets of footsteps came through the front door. Then Ted Sandyman caught sight of what had been done to Pippin, and he turned and ran.

"Well I never!" exclaimed Carl. "Thinks he's too good for real work, that Ted. Lazy and rich, that's the way of it."

Merry wept as he rode. He had not been able to say a proper farewell to Estella, as she was deeply asleep when he went to see her. He could not have left her in better hands; Eldarion was there, and that whole wing of Brandy Hall smelled of athelas. But Merry still felt he should be there with her. Adventure and world-saving was a game for the young and single.

It was a good thing that Berilac was leading the way, because Merry could not see through his tears. He thought that his clan was giving him a respectful solitude for his grief, until he heard the murmurs, and caught the words 'Saradoc' and 'study'. He realized that the reason no one was offering inane and clichéd words of comfort was not that they thought he would prefer to cry alone, but that they were afraid of him. It wasn't fair! Merry wasn't the one who had beaten generations of Brandybucks. He had never touched any of them. And he had been on the receiving end of Saradoc's strap himself, often enough. He couldn't help what he had become. He had tried his best. He wanted to shout, 'it was self-defense!' He wanted to put on the ring and make them all think highly of him again.

Merry gasped out loud at that thought. Sam was right. That thing was dangerous. But it was such a beautiful thing. And it had saved Estella's life. How could he even think of destroying it? Wiping the tears from his face, Merry hardened his heart against the ring. He had actually been tempted, just for an instant, to use it to brainwash his own family. It was useful, that was true; and beautiful, a perfection of form and thought; but underneath it was a horror.

The company halted as they saw Ted Sandyman come up the road. "Don't shoot!" he called. "I'm coming over to your side!"

"What for?" Sam asked.

"Because Merlin's insane!" Ted continued toward them, and stopped walking in front of the lead pony. "I thought he was a little cracked right from the start, claiming to be Saruman and all, but he said he wanted to set things up like before, when the Shire exported pipe-weed and all sorts of goods south-away, and I made a tidy profit thereby. But now all he cares about is his 'experiment' as he calls it. He's doing terrible things to Mr. Took. Terrible! One day he's all about turning a profit, and the next day he's hot to get some piece of jewelry from the Miracle Worker, and then from the Brandybucks, and then he forgets all that like yesterday's whittling and ups and starts torturing Mr. Took for the sport!"

"Torturing?" Merry asked, spurring his pony to the front of the column. "Nobody needs to torture Pippin, he can't help but spout truth no matter what he's asked, even if he didn't know the answer before it came out of his mouth."

"He's not trying to make him talk, Master Brandybuck," Ted said apologetically. "He's got a gag on him, on account of Merlin not liking his cussing. He's trying to make him stand up."

"St—stand up?" Merry stammered.

"Mr. Took is down and he won't get up. Merlin told him he could walk out anytime, and he just lays there and takes it. He'd swooned, thankfully, when I high-tailed it out of there."

"What's he doing to him?"

"He let Pressy on him, first off. Then he burned him with the poker 'til he passed out."

"Oh no! Poor Pippin! When I find Saruman I'll bash his brains in!"

"But I walked here, don't you see: I know where he is!"

"Lead us there! Someone give him a pony, we ride for the stronghold of Saruman!"

"No, wait!" Sam exclaimed. "It's a trap, Mr. Merry."

"I ain't leading you into no trap, I swear it!" Ted shouted.

"Maybe you don't know as you're doing it," said Sam. Then he turned to Merry. "But even if it isn't, we have to go on. We have to destroy the ring."

"I'm not leaving him there like that!" Merry shrieked. "Forget and be-bother the ring!" Merry spurred his pony and trotted down the road in the direction from which Ted had come. He called back over his shoulder, "One of you give Ted his pony and return to the Hall on foot to bear the news!"

Merimas, who delighted to bear news (especially to his sisters), dismounted and helped Ted up onto the pony. Ted sped toward Merry to lead the way.

"Wait!" called Sam. He was left in the dust as the Brandybucks followed their Master. Sam shook his head, and rode after them.

Pippin swam up out of a nightmare about being tortured by orcs to find that waking was worse: he was being tortured by hobbits. He was all wet, and freezing cold despite the late summer warmth and the heat that should have been coming from the scorch marks on his skin. One of his tormentors was shoving bits of ice inside him. Pippin shivered, but despite his horror the ice sort of felt good. He remembered why: the red hot poker. He tried to get up, a muscle in his calf seized up, and he came fully awake screaming: one long, high wail that seemed to last forever, until Pippin struggled onto his side and grasped the cramping leg to ease it. He realized he was no longer gagged.

The scream brought Saruman, swishing into the room in his white robes. "Ah. You awaken. If you promise not to curse, I will allow you the use of your mouth. Carl will give you cider."

"Ghorash dinarekh'tab valo!"

Pippin was not entirely sure what that particular curse actually meant in the Black Speech, but its effect was immediate and obvious. Thousands of tiny sores appeared on Saruman's skin, and they opened and ran. "Gag him again!" Saruman ordered.

Carl and Pressy rushed to obey, both looking slightly disturbed.

"You fool, Peregrin Took," Saruman said. Pippin started at the near-Gandalfian wording. "This is your own country. You would bring this vile pox here, merely to strike at me?"

Pippin expected to be compelled to try to answer, despite having his shirt sleeve stuffed back into his mouth, this time more securely bound with twine. But to his surprise, he made no sound. Perhaps the soothsayer spell was wearing off.

"The more fool you. I can cure myself in a day. But perhaps I should drop one of the seeds on you, to avenge myself for the inconvenience. That would be sweet: to loose a plague on the Shire that will kill for generations, long after I have recovered my ring and gone on to higher and better things, and the raw materials all supplied by you, old friend of my old enemy."

Pippin realized he must have said some variation on 'a pox on you'. He pictured his friends, and their children, succumbing to fevers, and the whole Shire draped in funereal black. All his fault. He started to cry.

"Mr. Merlin, sir?" Carl asked quietly. "Will we get sick too, sir?"

Saruman made a dismissive gesture. "It was a passing thought. I will not infect Pippin, though he deserves it. For you, my loyal followers, do not. I will not spread this contagion. The seeds have not yet come to my hands and feet. This day I will remain in my rooms, and catch the seeds in jars when they come. To isolate them, to be sure; but also to keep as a potential weapon, should the need arise. You two, move him to the other house. I will burn this one down when I leave, and will join you again after."

Carl and Pressy picked Pippin up and started dragging him toward the front door. They dropped him when they heard a clatter of hooves outside. An angry mob of Brandybucks burst through the door.

"Hold!" Saruman commanded. Most of them stopped, but not Merry. He caught sight of Pippin, drenched, naked, gagged, and covered with round burns from the poker, and a fury took him. Merry drew his sword and sprang at Saruman.

Pippin pulled at his gag, trying to warn Merry about the pox, but he could not get the twine off. Carl apparently had the same thought, and yelled, "Don't! He's contagious!" But Merry paid no attention to Carl.

"Stop now!" Saruman bellowed, pointing at Merry. The Voice had no effect.

Merry stabbed Saruman through the belly. "Too bad, Saruman. I would have liked to see you hang from a gibbet for the sport of your own crows, like King Theoden said. But I've seen enough battle to know you'll take longer to die this way."

"Fool. I will only return," Saruman wheezed as he sank to the floor.

"Not if I destroy the ring," Merry said.

"I have many talismans. You will never find them all."

"You lie!"

"Nay. I shall take form again. In some later age of the world. This earth has not seen the last of Merlin."

Merry wiped his sword on Saruman's white robe. The other Brandybucks and Sam were still held by Saruman's Voice. Carl and Pressy exchanged a look and ran out of the door. Merry sheathed his sword, went to Pippin and cradled him in his arms. "Poor Pippin. Still lying down. Have you been waiting to hear the counterphrase this whole time?"

Pippin did not try to speak.

"Oh. Sorry," Merry said. He pulled out his sword again and cut the twine, and pulled the white fabric out of Pippin's mouth. "Oh, my poor, dear cousin."

Saruman, bleeding from the gut wound, groaned heavily.

"You deserve every hour you die, Saruman," Merry spat, "for what you did to Pippin."

"What I did to him? I was not the one who trained him to take it lying down."

Merry issued a wordless animal howl, set Pippin down carefully, stalked over to Saruman and kicked him in the belly. Saruman cried out and curled up.

"Pippin is mine," Merry whispered. "And so is the ring." Then he went into one of the side rooms and emerged with a sheet with which to cover Pippin. He wrapped him up in it, and then held him, warming him up.

"Nothing new under the sun," the dying wizard said, perhaps to himself. "Or in the darkness. But this is new to me: how you have trained Pippin. It is a mature art, doubtless perfected through many years. A tradition in the Shire, perhaps? Most outside your land, if they think of hobbits at all, imagine you are innocent creatures. That Hobbiton is the village of the happy people, and that hobbits are simple and sweet. Now I finally understand Gandalf's interest in the Shire. Vacation, indeed! Pippin, relieve my curiosity, as I die. Did Gandalf ever punish you?"

"Yes," Pippin whispered reluctantly. Apparently the soothsayer spell had not yet worn off entirely. Perhaps it was going to be intermittent now.

"What were your feelings toward him?"

"I loved him like a grandfather," Pippin whispered.

"Ah…" Saruman exhaled, and his form crumpled in on itself. His flesh grew transparent, then turned to mist, and blew away on the wind. His robes lay empty.

End of Chapter Fifteen


	16. Chapter 16

Passing for Underhill Chapter 16

With Saruman's death, the Voice lost its hold on the other Brandybucks and Sam. Some went forward to look at Saruman's empty robe, and others approached Merry and Pippin. "Stay back!" Pippin shrilled. "Contagion! No one touch Saruman's clothes, or Merry, or me."

Accustomed to Pippin's compulsive truth-telling, the rescuers did as he bid them. One of them said, "Saruman's collaborators are getting away! Follow me!" And about half the company lit out after Carl and Pressy.

Berilac said, "You killed him."

"He wasn't really a hobbit," Merry said. "You saw how he just sort of fogged away when he died, the same as when Saruman died outside of Bag End. If there was any doubt he was Saruman returned, surely that's gone now."

Berilac nodded, but his face was blank, his eyes wide and staring, as if his mind had ground to a halt.

"What contagion, Pippin?" Merry asked.

"My fault. I cursed him. He was going to burn down this house to stop the illness from spreading, and I think we'd better do it. You and I shouldn't go back to Brandy Hall 'til we're sure we haven't got it."

"Oh. That's simple enough. Pippin, are we going to get what Saruman had?"

"No." Pippin blinked. The soothsayer's gift was functioning again.

"Are we carriers?"

"No."

"There. Problem solved." Merry started to help Pippin to his feet, then paused and whispered into Pippin's ear. "Get up. I'm done. Just in case you needed to hear that." Then he placed Pippin's arm over his shoulder and hauled him up. Pippin whimpered. "Sorry," Merry said quietly. He supported him as they went outside. The ponies were straying, cropping grass, but were still saddled. "Can you ride?"

"Oh, kh—" Pippin stopped himself. That was the curse that had made Saruman bleed from the eyes. For the first time, Pippin realized what 'darkness take you' really meant. "No, not a pony, please, I think I'd faint if I tried."

"Ride before me, then, and I'll hold you up if you swoon."

"No, Merry, by heaven, I can't, truly I can't."

"You can't walk back to Brandy Hall."

"What's the rush? Send for a cart."

"Alright. Alright, Pippin. I saw." Merry set Pippin down on a grassy spot. Pippin lay on his side. "Ilby! Get Berilac out of there and put this house to the torch. Then send for a pony-trap."

"Merry?"

"Yes, Pippin?"

"I'm thirsty."

Merry brought Pippin a water-skin from his pony's saddlebag. "Are you hungry, too, Pippin?"

"Yes, but…" Pippin closed his eyes.

"But what?"

"It's not safe to eat anything yet. Oh, damn, the soothsayer spell is working again. For a while there I thought it had stopped. Is this ever going to go away? No. Oh khe—oh no. Don't ask me anything."

When they returned to Brandy Hall, they found a crowd of concerned hobbits waiting for them. Melilot and Diamond had their arms around each other, and they were both crying. Some members of the squad that had chased Carl and Pressy were in the crowd.

"Oh no, not Melilot," Pippin muttered. "All the lasses are staring at me."

"They're just worried, Pippin," Merry said.

Diamond broke away from Melilot and padded over to her husband. She reached a tentative hand toward him. Then she sniffled and let it fall.

"Oh, Di," Pippin whispered, "What have—" He stopped and rephrased, so as not to ask a question, lest he be compelled to answer it. "You've heard something."

"Merimas rode in earlier, saying they'd gone to rescue you. Then the lads brought in Carl Digwell and Preston Cortoe, all trussed up like Lithe-day geese. Pip, oh Pippin!" Diamond's self-control broke, and she bawled, "The lads made them tell what they'd done!"

Pippin turned white. "Diamond," he squeaked. Then he swayed and Merry caught him.

"Come on," Merry said, helping Pippin walk through the great room. "Let's get you to your room. I'll send for Eldarion."

"No!" Pippin protested. "Get someone else."

"First things first," Merry said. "You need to l—you should be in bed."

Diamond told Melilot, "Meli, go on and get Eldarion." Then she followed Merry and Pippin.

Sam asked Merimas, "Where are you holding the prisoners?"

"We put them in the old vault. It's the only door that locks. Other than the new vault, of course. There's not much in the old vault now, we use it for a linen closet. They ought to go to the lockholes, when there's time."

"There aren't any lockholes anymore," Sam said. "The museum's been completely restored, years ago. As to what's to be done with them, I think that should be up to the Thain to decide."

One of the lasses smiled cruelly. "How perfect."

Merry and Diamond unwrapped Pippin and got him into his bed in the Took suite. Diamond nearly fainted when she saw the burns, despite what she had heard.

"Not to worry, Di," Merry assured, "Eldarion will heal him."

"No he won't," said Pippin. "I want someone else."

Merry's eyebrows raised. "Pip, after all you've been through, you're afraid of Eldarion? He isn't going to hurt you."

"He's thirteen, Merry. He shouldn't have to know about such things."

Diamond wept, "He knows already, Pip. Everybody does. Merimas told what Ted said, and Leroc told what Pressy said, and Meli heard it all, and that was hours ago, while you were going slowly on the pony cart. I've no doubt the news has passed the Brandywine Bridge by now. It's no good trying to keep it secret."

"Oh---" Pippin really wanted to swear. But now that he had seen the effects of his curses, he was afraid to do so. Pippin put a hand over his eyes, briefly, as if to blot out the world.

"Pippin," Merry said, "earlier you said it wasn't safe for you to eat anything. How long will that go on, if you aren't healed?"

"For the rest of my life," Pippin replied. "Oh trishak—oh no. I hate being a soothsayer." Pippin sighed. "Believe me, Merry, I don't want to be confined to applesauce for the next fifty years. I would just be a lot more comfortable being treated by Aragorn."

"Aragorn isn't here, Pippin. And you can't wait. Can you?"

"No. Dammit! Don't do that to me."

"I'm trying to save you, Pippin."

"Pip," Diamond said, "what have you heard about Eldarion today?"

"Nothing.Wh—I trust you have a reason for asking."

"It's nothing you need to concern yourself with, Pippin," Merry said. "You should concentrate on your own recovery. But Eldarion will feel insulted if you don't let him heal you. Nobody's coming around looking for a miracle anymore. Eldarion lost a patient. It's eating at his mind, and he thinks everyone blames him. It would be good for him to have someone to heal. To get back up on the horse, as it were."

"Who died?" Pippin asked. To his horror, he produced an answer he had never dreamed of: "Estella lost her baby." Pippin's jaw dropped. "Merry?!"

Merry started to cry. "Eldarion tried, he really tried. But even he can't furnish miracles to order."

"Did I—" Pippin began. Then he stopped himself, afraid of the answer. "I didn't think I'd hurt her!"

"Oh Valar, Pippin, no, it wasn't your fault! She just got really scared, is all. If anyone's to blame, it's Saruman."

Pippin burst into tears and covered his face with his hands.

The door opened, and Eldarion came in with his medical bag. Melilot was with him, bearing a large, steaming bowl. Celandine had—ominously—a chamber pot and a very old waterskin, one that would not be missed if ruined. And a bottle of cooking oil.

"Good heavens," Merry exclaimed, "what are you planning to do with THAT?"

Pippin looked at the gear and clamped his hands over his mouth in horror. He made a pitiful little sound.

The two Brandybuck ladies set down their offerings and withdrew. Pausing at the door, Celandine said, "Don't worry, Pippin. Eldarion will take the pain away. And I'll give Pressy one in the nuts for you." Then she closed the door.

Eldarion coughed. His eyes looked puffy.

"You've been crying," Pippin said. "No—yes. But that's not it."

Eldarion coughed again. His voice was a bit pinched as he said, "Seredic offered me a smoke. I have been attempting to pass as an adult, as you know. How do you hobbits stand the stuff? It is vile."

To his own surprise, Pippin fell into a fit of hysterical laughter. After a few minutes, he said, "Oh Valar! I can't stop! It's not really that funny!"

Diamond sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. "Sh, sh."

Eldarion began the athelas ritual, and Pippin sobered immediately. "No, stop," Pippin said. "Stop. I don't want this."

Eldarion paused, looking doubtful.

"Go on, Eldarion," Merry told him gently. "Aragorn healed Eowyn after the battle of the Pelennor, even though he knew she wanted to die."

Reassured, Eldarion breathed on the leaves and cast them into the hot water.

"No," Pippin said again. "You don't understand, Merry. Eldarion's still a child. I've been hurt in places I don't want him touching me."

"I know that, Pippin," Merry said softly, patting Pippin's shoulder. "But you need to be healed and Eldarion's the only one who can do it. I know you're afraid. And I know what you're afraid of. But he's a healer, Pippin. It's not the same."

"I know that!" Pippin started crying again. "Wait. Do I need to be awake for this?" Pippin covered his mouth so that the question was directed at Eldarion instead of at whatever font of universal truth his gift tapped.

Eldarion considered carefully. "Well, you must void, at some point. Perhaps several times, depending. However, that is not the right question. I do not know how to administer a sleeping draught. I apologize, Pippin. I am not yet fully trained in the healer's art. The sleeping draught is dangerous; it can even be deadly. My father has not taught me how to make it or figure a dosage, for he has said that I must needs grow to maturity before I will be ready to hold another's life in my hands. I am sorry."

Pippin closed his eyes, either in resignation or in the hope that the world would go away if he stopped looking at it, he was not sure.

Diamond said, "It will be alright. I'll be right here."

"No," Pippin insisted. "Go away, all of you. Just let me rest. I don't want a healer."

Diamond planted a kiss on the end of his nose. "I noticed that you did not try to say you don't need one, my love. Because you know you can't speak lies."

Pippin pushed Diamond away. "Everybody leave. I want…" Whatever it was he was trying to say, he could not say it. "This gift is a curse." Pippin rolled out of bed and staggered toward the door. "Fine, you stay. I'll leave."

Merry caught him and pushed him back into bed.

Diamond said, "I'm not going to let you become an invalid because you're too traumatized to think straight right now. Merry, make him stay down for Eldarion."

Pippin's eyes widened. "Merry?" he whimpered.

"You're right, Diamond." Merry nodded. "Pippin: lay down and stay down."

Pippin squeezed his eyes shut and made an odd, high-pitched sound. But he did not try to leave again.

Eldarion filled the waterskin and attempted to begin the treatment. Pippin struggled.

"Pippin!" Merry barked.

"I'm down!" Pippin whined.

Merry gentled his tone. "You're staying down, but you're not staying still."

"That was never part of it."

"True," Merry said. He dug in his pocket, and pulled out the ring. "Do I have to have to use the Voice?"

"No!" Pippin shrieked. "Please Valar no! Seriously no, Merry!"

"Pip, it's alright, hush now, that wasn't meant as a threat. I'm trying to help."

"The Voice's commands are permanent, Merry!" Pippin screamed. "I don't want to be still forever!"

"He's right," Diamond said. "Put the ring away. It might do more harm than good."

Merry put the ring back in his pocket.

Eldarion said, "We must restrain him the old fashioned way, I fear. Each of you, take a leg."

"Oh, Valar," Pippin squeaked.

"They are with us," Eldarion intoned. "Through my connection to them, through the blood of kings and the Line of Luthien, I will heal you."

End of Chapter Sixteen


	17. Chapter 17

Passing for Underhill Chapter Seventeen

"All done," said Eldarion. "Did I not promise you the level of discomfort would be well within your tolerance?"

"You did," Pippin replied shakily. Damn the soothsayer spell, Pippin thought. He hated that feeling of compulsion when someone asked him a question. Even a rhetorical question. He was soaking wet again, this time with sweat.

"That was not so bad, now was it?" Eldarion asked absently, cleaning and putting away his tools.

Pippin turned his head and buried his face in the pillow to stifle the automatic response. When he turned back, he gasped, "You don't want to know what I think of what you just did. All three of you. Don't ask me again."

"Pip," Di said, "it was for your—"

"Don't say it. 'For your own good' is the most dangerous idea ever invented. Worse than the ring. Worse than orcs. Because it makes evil flow from love. Or from self-righteousness."

Diamond shook her head. "You're out of your head, Pip. You'll be glad when you can eat solid food again. Which will be when, Eldarion?"

"Tomorrow, perhaps, he can begin with soft things. Fruit. Bread. I will speak with the kitchen maids." Eldarion finished packing away his kit. The water-skin went into the trash.

Merry said, "Get up. I'm done. You don't have to actually get up, I just wanted to let you know it's over." He held the door for Eldarion and went in search of a servant to carry out the used chamber pot.

Diamond bent down to kiss Pippin, who allowed it but did not respond to it. "You'll feel better after you've eaten something," Diamond said.

"Oh, go away, Di, please. I need to be alone."

"If you wish."

When he was alone in the room, Pippin thought he would cry, but he did not. He considered cursing, but he had lost his taste for it after seeing what it did in the spiritual realm, visited on the avatar of Saruman. The physical body had looked a lot like a hobbit. The indwelling spirit had infused it with a maia's power, but had also made it vulnerable to spiritual attacks.

He suddenly wondered where little Faramir had been during all this. With his friends among Sam's children, he hoped. He thought back to how loud he had screamed when Merry suggested using the ring, and hoped no one at all had been in any nearby rooms or corridors. The gossip was going to be bad enough without adding 'can't take his medicine' to it.

"Oh, the gossip," Pippin groaned. "Why, oh why, did this have to happen in Buckland, around Melilot Brandybuck of all people? No one's ever going to look at me the same." For this alone he could hate Preston Cortoe. But was that fair? Pressy hadn't done anything to him that Merry hadn't done, hundreds of times. Saruman was the one who had burned him, and he was dead. Justly slain.

Pippin stopped sweating, and suddenly felt chill. He drew up the coverlets.

"How am I going to share this bed with Diamond tonight?" Diamond had been a refuge, a port of sanity in the storm of his life. Now she was part of the stomach-churning chaos.

There was a knock at the door. Pippin thought it was probably a servant come to empty the chamber pot and clean up and lay on fresh sheets, so he said, "Come in."

A pale hobbit lady in a dressing gown entered the room.

"Estella. What are you doing here?" He did not answer his own question this time. The soothsayer gift was indeed becoming erratic.

"They don't know I got out of bed. Nearly everyone seems to be occupied with the two miscreants they have locked up in the vault, though no one will tell me what they did. And nobody will tell me what happened to you, either. Everyone says I shouldn't worry my pretty little head about it."

"They didn't want to tell me what happened to you, either. But I asked, and then I answered myself. I'm so sorry, Estella. If only I'd had more willpower, to resist the Voice."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Maybe not entirely, but I did my bit."

"What happened to you, Pippin?"

Pippin covered his mouth, and waited for the truth to go away. Then he said, "Nothing I didn't deserve."

"Which was what?"

Pippin clamped both hands over his mouth, waited out the ugly details, then said, "Please stop doing that. Just know that I've been thoroughly punished for whatever part I played in the loss of your child. I'm truly sorry. Now please go away."

"Pippin," Estella said, "here's what I know already. Merry put you down. I ran out of the room. I miscarried, and Eldarion saved my life. Then he went off to treat you for your injuries. Which everyone seems to be talking about, and no one will say boo to me about. Except that I distinctly overheard Celandine say she was amazed you'd stay down for it, no matter how you'd been trained. What did Merry do to you, Pippin?"

Pippin covered his mouth again. He was afraid such an open-ended question would draw forth every detail of every terrible incident of his youth. But he made no sound. He sighed and said, "Merry didn't, that is, I…" He trailed off. Pippin struggled to organize his wandering thoughts. "Merry has done a lot of things to me, Estella. But what everyone's talking about, Saruman and his henchmen—henchhobbits?—they did it. And Saruman is dead, and Ted defected to our side, and the two criminals in the vault are the other two, so everything is—well, not fine. But you don't have to be afraid."

"I am afraid, Pippin," Estella said. "I thought I was marrying a rich war hero. Meriadoc the Magnificent, cutting a dash through the Shire with his finery, riding about on his pony like a mounted warrior out of old tales. Along with you, equally fine and lordly. What foolish, romantic notions I had! I've been afraid since the night you tried to help me and Merry conceive, and I saw you passed out of the floor with bloody buckle marks all over your back side. Merry has only beaten me once, and I agreed to it, trying to help him overcome his problem to start a child. But I'm afraid someday he's going to forget that I'm not you, and I don't like it."

"Are—do you—" Pippin struggled to evolve a question that was not formed as a question. "You could leave him. If you're really afraid."

"Separate?" Di wondered. "It isn't done. And from the Master of Buckland? Where would I go? Don't answer that. I know, back to my own people, the Bolgers. But would they even take me in? The scandal!"

"Estella, scandal comes whatever we do. I'm quite certain I'm going to be the subject of some very nasty gossip in the coming year, and, and… well if you're really so afraid, maybe you should think about not having a child."

"Oh. Pippin, I don't know what I expected from you, but it wasn't this. You talk like a lass."

"Oh, great. Wonderful. As if that wouldn't make a good addition to the current rumor."

"I didn't mean that as an insult, Pippin. I'm one myself, remember?" Estella smiled ironically.

"Yes, I suppose so."

"But what is the rumor, Pippin?"

Pippin's eyes widened, and he gasped a little, but nothing came out. He blew out his breath. "The soothsayer gift is going a little on-again off-again. I haven't heard the rumor, Estella. But I can guess. Pressy's going to claim I was a willing participant. And Carl will back him up. My word against theirs. And yes, I'm The Took, and they're not of my class. And there's the kidnapping and the rescue, and the burn marks, and the death of Saruman. But there will always be those who wonder if Pressy was telling the truth. Dammit." Pippin shifted uncomfortably. "And they'll wonder even more if I let Pressy go, but what else can I do in fairness? We've all seen the power of the Voice. How can I be sure—I can't be sure Pressy was a willing participant himself."

Estella bit her lip and regarded him for a long moment. "I won't ask in what. I spoke truer than I knew when I said you talked like a lass, for I've surely never heard such a roundabout answer from a lad before. I think I understand. I'll leave you alone now, if you wish. Or I'll stay, if you wish it."

"Go and rest, Estella. You look like you could sleep for a week."

"And I feel like it, too. Take care of yourself, Pippin."

End of Chapter 17


	18. Chapter 18

Passing for Underhill Chapter Eighteen

Diamond came in when the long light of evening slanted through the windows. "How are you, Pippin?"

"Sore. Resentful. Di, please, don't ask me things. And don't—" Pippin looked away. "Would you mind terribly if—no, that's a question, if I ask a question I'll end up answering it."

"What—tell me."

"I just don't want to be close, right now. I don't want to be touched. Please stay in Faramir's room. Just for tonight. Please don't be offended."

She thought a moment, then said softly, "Alright, Pip." She turned and went out. A few minutes later she passed through the suite's sitting area with Faramir-lad. Pippin heard her tell him his Daddy was too sick to get out of bed, and Mommy was going to stay with Faramir-lad tonight so Mommy's snoring wouldn't wake up poor sick Daddy.

Pippin slept badly that night. Scenes of his kidnapping and his healing replayed together, mixing and mingling. Instead of Merry and Diamond holding him down, it was Carl and Pressy. Instead of Saruman, it was Merry pushing the red hot poker deep inside him. Throughout it all, Uncle Saradoc was watching, always watching.

The great room was the only room big enough to hold the entire assembly. All the adults in the Hall were there. The older children were watching the younger, somewhere safely away from the proceedings. Pressy and Carl, hands tied in front of them, stood before a large overstuffed chair, which contained Pippin. This grand seat was less Throne of The Took and more a soft convalescent recliner.

The Brandybuck women clustered together, as grim of face as any hobbits ever look. Celandine had a gelding iron in her hand. Just in case it was called for.

Pippin looked distinctly uncomfortable as he began, "We're here to judge Carl Digwell and Preston Cortoe. Ted Sandyman has already been pardoned, due to his defection to our side. But this is not a simple matter. We've all seen the power of the Voice of Saruman. There is no way to be sure that Carl and Pressy acted of their own will. Even they might not be sure. When Saruman used the Voice against us, here in this room, it was obvious what he was doing, even if some found it irrestible. Including me. I would not have been close by for Saruman to kidnap if I had not been under the control of the Voice. But I've also seen Saruman, in his old, big form with the white beard, use the Voice subtly, so that it was hard to tell where one's own thoughts ended and his began. It was for this reason that our dear, departed Frodo counseled mercy after the Battle of Bywater, to those hobbits who had served Saruman and the Chief's Big Men. In his Frodo's memory, I would extend mercy again. Not to Saruman, to be sure; but Saruman is already dead. Saruman was the one who burned me. Saruman was the ringleader, and he has paid. Therefore I will not banish Carl and Pressy, much I as I'm tempted to do so, simply so that I will not ever encounter them again. Nor will I call for any mutilations, Celandine. Though I do appreciate your show of support, as it were."

Celandine looked disappointed.

Pippin continued, "Nor will I have them shunned, for that would be nearly the same thing. Though I will certainly not prevent anyone from choosing to shun them individually, and they shall not pass the borders of Tuckborough. But let them truly pay for what they have done. For those who joined with Saruman, did so in the hope of becoming rich off the export of things needed here in the Shire, just as the ruffians did. They joined with Saruman, in his latest incarnation as Merlin, thinking that soon there would be 'gathering' again, meaning everything would be in short supply while those with a hand in the 'gathering' got fat. It was this vision that brought Carl and Pressy to Saruman's service. I have said it, therefore it is the truth. Carl and Pressy will each pay one cow to the office of the Thain. I am well aware that neither have one. Let them impoverish themselves to pay for their crimes. They have five years to acquire the fine and pay it. After that, if it is not paid, they are banished. My judgement is spoken. Set them outside the door."

Pippin closed his eyes and settled back into the chair. "I'm glad that's over. Go back to normal life now, everyone."

Normal life did, indeed, seem to resume. Before long, people were chewing the fat and playing at board games, but the buzz of conversation seemed subdued, even strained. The only laughter came from some of the children, as they ran through the great room to get outside. But today, anxious mothers followed after them, to keep them from running into the outlaws who might still be lingering in the woods. And the mothers wore long knives at their belts. A few of them carried bows, with quivers of arrows slung across their corseted backs. The mothers of Buckland were taking no chances.

Merry sat down by Pippin. "I think you walked that tightrope quite well, Pippin."

"Tightrope, what a perfect expression. It did feel like a balancing act, at that. I didn't want to be too soft. Then again-- you would not have cared for the first speech I came up with."

"Why, what were you planning to say?"

"The truth. What else?" Pippin waited for the inevitable compulsion to speak after a question, and when it came, he added, "The truth is, Merry, Pressy didn't do anything to me that you haven't done. Hundreds of times. Saruman was another matter, but you already took care of him. Temporarily, at least. He'll come back if you don't destroy the ring."

"I know. I will."

"Soon, I hope."

"When you're better, you can come with me. We'll all ride to Stock. It won't have to be a war party, now that Saruman is dead again. We'll make a holiday of it."

"If you think that'll help."

That night, Pippin's nightmares returned. He did not dream of the torture; perhaps the careful thought he had given to Carl and Pressy's case had cast too much daylight into that event for it to return riding the dreaded mare of night.

Instead he dreamt of the healing. His legs held down, the greased end of the water-skin at his entrance, the watery invasion. Then rolled over, legs held high and apart. Cloth soaked in herbal water, dabbing, dabbing, dabbing. Eldarion's clear, high voice: "Do not be embarrassed. Everyone finds athelas pleasurable. There are often crowds in the hallway during a miracle session, merely to smell it." Pippin woke up and fell out of the hateful bed. He landed hard, the sheets wound around his limbs from tossing and turning. He stayed where he landed, even though the floor was cold and hard.

The next day he sat in the sunshine in a side parlor and kibitzed on a game of marbles between little Faramir, Frodo Gardner and some of Sam's other children, and a few of the Brandybuck brood. And ate fruit. And bread. And tea. And the first of the fall squash—baked soft.

Eldarion came by the check on his progress with eating food, but Pippin couldn't look at him. He felt dirty.


	19. Chapter 19

Passing for Underhill Chapter Nineteen

"Look," whispered Frodo Gardner to little Faramir. "Master Brandybuck fell asleep."

The two boys regarded the sleeping Merry in his lawn chair, a book open on his belly.

"All the grownups are afraid of him. He doesn't look so scary to me."

"Why don't you go draw a mustache on him, then?" suggested the younger lad.

"It's your idea. You do it."

"Naw…"

"I dare you."

Faramir-lad's eyes twinkled and he took a few steps toward the lawn chair. Then he turned back, whispered, "I don't have a marker," and his face lit up with an idea. He continued his stalk toward the sleeping hobbit.

Merry began to snore.

Little Faramir grinned, tip-toed up to him, and picked his pocket.

He fled past Frodo-lad into the sun-dappled woodland, and Frodo ran after him. When he caught up with him, Frodo-lad said, "Fairy, that wasn't nice! I told you to play a prank, not steal."

Little Faramir said, "Then I guess you don't want to see what I got?"

"Of course I want to see!"

Faramir-lad opened his tiny hand to reveal the Ring of Saruman.

Frodo-lad gasped. "It's beautiful! But Fairy, it must be valuable. You should put it back."

"I don't think I can," the younger hobbit replied. "Now that I have it, I'm afraid too."

"Give it to me, then. I'll return it for you."

"I haven't played with it yet!" Faramir-lad protested, and slipped all of his fingers through it.

Frodo-lad grabbed his arm and tried to take it away from him.

"Let me keep it!" Faramir-lad cried. The Ring was on him, and the Voice came from his innocent mouth.

Frodo-lad dropped his hands. "Alright," he said, as if coming to a decision. "But…" Frodo Gardner tried to puzzle out what he should do. "My dad said if you were naughty I should bring you to your parents."

"But they'll take it away from me! You promised to let me keep it." Faramir-lad took the ring back off, held it up and looked at it closely. "It's such a beautiful thing."

"You can keep it until an adult finds out you have it. Then they're going to blame me, you know they are."

Little Faramir did not respond. He was caught up in gazing at the Ring, staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed. He heard nothing, as if Frodo-lad's words were drowned out by some terrible music.

"Fairy!" Frodo-lad waved a hand in front of Faramir's face. Faramir-lad did not blink. Frodo-lad picked up the younger boy around the waist and swatted his hind end.

Faramir yelped and started to struggle. His hand closed tight around the Ring.

"You be quiet," Frodo-lad directed, "or one of the grownups will hear you and come take away the ring." Then he delivered a series of spanks to the lad's trouser seat. "That's for stealing." Frodo-lad set him back on his feet.

Little Faramir had tears on his face, but he held one hand over his mouth to keep back his crying, in exactly the way he had seen his father put a clamp on the soothsaying. The other hand still clutched the Ring.

"You're getting off lightly," Frodo-lad said. "I'm going to get the belt when my dad finds out I let you keep the ring. Why am I doing this? It's stupid. I know we'll be discovered eventually."

Faramir-lad wiped his face and said, "Because you're my friend."

Frodo-lad patted his head. "Always, Fairy."

Merry woke up and stretched. He hunted for his bookmark and set aside the frivolous tale with which he had been attempted to distract himself and relax. Apparently it had worked, since he had fallen asleep in the sunshine. He thought about going inside to find some tea, and absently patted his pocket out of nervous habit. It was empty.

Merry sat bolt upright. The Ring! He felt desperately around the chair, then jumped up, knelt down, and raked his fingers through the grass beneath. "It's got to be here somewhere! It must have slipped out of my pocket while I was napping."

Merry expanded his search area, then went over the same ground again. Then he turned the chair over and shook it. No ring. He stared around wildly, hoping to catch the glint of gold, but there was nothing there. A bird flew from one tree to another, and Merry thought, 'Magpies! No, it's not nesting season.' He hesitated between running to the Hall for help and staying to guard the general vicinity from birds and other possible picker-uppers. "No good dithering here!" Merry told himself, and raced into Brandy Hall.

The first person he saw was a hobbit lass in a green dress. "Celandine! I need your help finding something."

"Something? That's not very descriptive."

"Small, round, full of evil—can't miss it!"

"You lost the Ring?" she gasped.

"I knew the things were treacherous. Why didn't I put it on a chain like Frodo did?"

"Who was there?"

"Nobody! I was all alone. It just disappeared! Oh, wait! Could it have actually disappeared? I'm not sure about all of its powers. The Three could make themselves invisible, without making their wearers invisible. Oh, we've got to feel for it! It's probably in the lawn near the chair," Merry sighed in premature relief.

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Celandine asked. The two of them went out to search for the Ring. Celandine patted around on the lawn, and Merry started pulling the chair apart, to see if it had lodged in any of the slats.

Merry briefly considered what he would do if Celandine found it and wouldn't give it back. Then he dismissed the thought as unworthy. Celandine had been immune to the Voice when Saruman was attacking. Surely she would resist the call of the Ring as well. Merry pulled off the last slat, and tossed down the chair. The Ring wasn't there!

That was how Berilac and Ilberic found them, coming out of the woods from their self-appointed anti-Pressy patrol: Celandine on her hands and knees, Merry with a flat piece of wood in his hand.

Berilac took a step forward, looking furious, but Ilby caught his arm. Merry could almost hear the whole conversation: What in tarnation are you doing? It's not what it looks like! Are you alright Celandine? Why wouldn't I be alright?

Then Ilberic pulled Berilac up the path into the Hall. Berilac cast a look back at Merry, part worry, part anger, but did not say a word.

Merry dropped the slat and tried to think of a way to deny he was doing anything to Celandine without making it worse. Celandine, intent on the grass in front of her, never noticed Berilac and Ilberic at all. Merry sank down and joined Celandine in the search. After a while he said, "It's no use. It isn't here. I fell asleep, and then it was gone. I thought I dropped it, but maybe someone took it. Stop searching, Celandine. I'm going to ask the soothsayer where to find it."

Celandine got up and brushed off her dress. "I think you're right. We've looked and looked. But who would take the Ring?"

"Anyone," Merry said. "That's the nature of the things." He kicked the pile of chair parts. "We'll soon see." He went into the Hall to find Pippin.

Frodo Gardner and Faramir Took saw Merry and Celandine go inside just as they returned from the glen. "We have to hide it," Faramir said. "I can't hide it in my room, my mommy goes through all my things to clean them."

"I could hide it," Frodo-lad offered. He did not know why he felt compelled to help Faramir-lad keep the Ring away from the adults. He wrestled with his conscience, but he could not bring himself to break his promise. Or had he promised? What exactly had been said was growing dim, except for one thing: 'let me keep it' echoed in his mind.

"Yes! Let's go to your room and find a good hiding place."

The boys looked over the bland guest-room that young Frodo had been given. There were no loose boards or floor-tiles, or any other truly secret hiding place. They settled for a bureau drawer under some rather worn, embroidered tea-towels, which were doubtless stowed there for lack of a better place to put them.

"If I'm going to hide it in my room, I want to try it on, just once."

"Sure," Faramir-lad said. "I'll share. Just remember, it's mine."

Young Frodo took the Ring. He held it up to his eye and examined it. "It really is quite beautiful," he breathed. Then he put it on. Immediate the sunlight coming from the round window dimmed. Faramir-lad looked pale and wan, and everything around him flapped like wings in a cave of a thousand bats. Frodo-lad gasped and took off the Ring. He put it in the drawer and covered it with towels.

Then the two lads went to the great room and started playing a game, trying to look innocent (which was not hard, as most hobbits looked innocent most of the time.)

Merry found Pippin in a sunny nook, a plate of some odd looking fruit beside him on a carved table. Diverted, Merry asked, "What are those?"

"The first of your Buckland red grapes, so I'm told," Pippin replied.

Merry looked at them closely. "Somebody peeled them?"

"Yes. Apparently Eldarion told the kitchen staff I couldn't have the skins."

"Hmpf." Merry pulled up a wooden chair and sat down at a companionable angle. "I have a problem."

"You're just figuring that out now?" Pippin asked, then immediately covered his mouth.

Merry raised a hand. Then he realized he was about the slap Pippin just for trying for a mood slightly above doomsday, and let his hand fall with an embarrassed sigh. "The Ring is gone."

"What?!" Pippin sat forward, winced in a way that suggested he had moved wrong, and then covered his mouth, and gingerly settled back into the armchair. "What do—tell me."

"It just wasn't in my pocket anymore, when I checked."

"You utter dunce, Merry," Pippin groaned, hand on his forehead.

"Pip, that doesn't help!" Merry propelled himself out of the chair, grabbed Pippin by the suspender straps and hauled him to his feet. "Do you have any idea what it's like to lose one of those things?!" Then Merry covered Pippin's mouth for him. "Sorry. Sorry, Pippin." Merry let go and backed off. "I need your help. I need your gift. Where is the Ring?"

"In a drawer."

Merry closed his eyes briefly and blew out his breath. Then he started over. "Let me try that again. Who has the Ring?"

"Frodo has the Ring," Pippin replied. Then a peculiar expression came over his face. "I think my Gift has gone wonky. It's confusing the present with the past. No it isn't." Pippin ran stiff fingers through his curls, as close as he came to a scratching-the-head gesture. "I don't understand it, either."

"Which Frodo has it?" Merry asked in sudden suspicion.

"Frodo Gardner." Pippin's mouth opened again, but no sound came out.

Merry went green. "Filthy little thief," he growled. He spun and started to leave.

Pippin put a restraining hand on Merry's shoulder. "Merry, he's a child. Don't—"

"Every rule has its exceptions, Pip," Merry grated. He charged out, and Pippin stumbled after him.

He found the boy in the great room and bulled through a gaggle of hobbit lasses and their sewing. Frodo-lad saw him coming and tried to flee.

Pippin, white-faced, trailed his cousin beseeching, "Merry, don't! Merry!"

Merry grabbed young Frodo and lifted him off his feet. "Where is the Ring, you miserable sneak?"

Frodo-lad squeaked, "In the bureau in my room. Please let me down!"

"Oh, I'll let you DOWN all right," Merry threatened.

All the adult Brandybucks gasped in horror.

"No!" Pippin cried.

Little Faramir jumped up on a chair and waved his arms, wailing, "Let him go! It was me! I took the ring! I did it!"

"Oh, Faramir," Pippin sighed. "What did I tell—I told you about this."

"I did!" Faramir screamed. "I picked Master Brandybuck's pocket! It was me!"

A few of the Brandybucks stood up. But if they had intended to come to the child's rescue, they got no farther. The shouting had attracting Sam.

"What's all this, then? Unhand my son, Mr. Merry."

Merry threw Frodo-lad in Sam's direction, and the boy sprawled across a couch. "Fine. You deal with him. After we all make a trip to his room to see what he's got in there."

"Oh?" Sam looked at Frodo-lad with a look of reserved judgment.

"It was me!" Faramir screeched. Tears started rolling down his red face.

Sam marched Frodo-lad to his room, accompanied by Merry, Pippin, Fairy, and a mob of Brandybucks. Shaking, Frodo-lad opened the drawer and pulled out the Ring.

Merry snatched it from him. "I hope Sam gives you a lesson you'll never forget. Come on, everyone. Out. Out, everybody but Sam and Frodo."

"But it was me!" Faramir wept. Pippin picked him up and carried him away.

"Told you so," Frodo-lad said glumly to his friend.

The door closed on Sam and his son. Frodo Gardner started crying before his punishment even began.

"A Ring of Power is nothing to trifle with, lad," Sam said.

"I know," Frodo-lad sniffled. "I knew I was going to catch it hot."

"Well, you're right. You are," Sam said. He took off his belt.

End of Chapter Nineteen.


	20. Chapter 20

Passing for Underhill Chapter Twenty

Pippin picked little Faramir up and carried him out of the room at the back of the crowd.

The six year old screamed, "No! It was me! Don't let him hurt him!"

Someone closed the door, and Pippin wondered if he really could, or should, do as his son demanded. He was the Thain, but the Thain of the Shire was not an autocrat. He could not simply command his countrymen to start raising their children his way. And in this instance, he thought perhaps he ought not to feel guilty for walking off and letting it happen. 'The burned hand teaches best'; Gandalf had said that to him, about the Palantir. Pippin could not suppress a shudder at the memory.

"I took it," Faramir sobbed.

"You can't help your friend now," Pippin said quietly. "Hush, and I may let you out of your room soon enough for you to go comfort him afterwards."

Faramir-lad stopped kicking and clung.

In the sudden quiet, above the soft sound of bare hobbit feet hurrying away, Pippin could hear the snap of leather. He winced so, he nearly dropped little Faramir. Prudently, Pippin set him down and directed him, "Off to your room now."

Pippin had intended to follow the boy, but he found himself wandering in a side corridor. He had lost track of where he was going somehow. No one was about.

There was a series of doors, and a turning, none of which he recognized. He really wanted to sit down. No, he wanted to crawl into bed.

He heard raised voices. He thought about going back the way he had come, but did not want to pass by the Gamgee corridor again so soon, not when he might hear the sounds of the belting. He felt guilty about hiding from what was going on, but he went forwards. The voices, previously too muffled to identify, resolved into Merry and Estella's. Pippin distinctly heard his own name being hurled at Merry, and then Merry asking, "Right about what?" Then there was a resounding silence. A door being slammed.

Pippin realized he was in exactly the wrong place at exactly the wrong time when he saw Merry stomping up the corridor, hands balled into fists. Merry was not actually emitting visible steam, but he came close.

With a sense of inevitable, impending doom, Pippin did not bother trying to duck into a doorway. He knew Merry was not going to just shout this time. Was the soothsayer gift growing stronger? Or was he just good at reading Merry's body language? Either way, he realized he would actually welcome a confrontation as a way to let go of the unpalatable cocktail of mixed feelings the day's events—no, be honest, he told himself, the months' events—had brought to him. He appreciated the irony of telling himself to 'be honest'.

Merry grabbed Pippin's arms, so that Pippin could bring his hands up to block his mouth, and asked him, "Did you tell Estella to leave me?"

"Yes." Pippin turtled up, his shoulders rising, his eyes squeezing nearly shut, and whispered, "Please don't hurt me."

Merry blinked, at war with himself. Finally, he got out, "Why?"

"Because… actually, I can't think of a good reason not to hurt me. Hell, maybe we'd both feel better if you did."

"Pip," Merry sighed in exasperation. He let go of Pippin and slapped the wall. A framed painted jolted off the wall and broke on the floor. He turned back to his trembling cousin. "I meant, why did you tell Estella that we should separate?"

"Oh. Because she's afraid of you."

Merry closed his eyes for a few moments. Then he looked at Pippin, who was looking anywhere but at Merry. "Everybody in Buckland is afraid of me. Do you know what brought this on, Pippin? Estella heard a rumor that I'd been abusing Celandine."

Pippin lifted his gaze in shock and met Merry's eyes. "Celandine? Celandine is young and strong and fierce. And she still has my sword. I don't know which one of you I'd bet on if it came to a fight."

"So what?" Merry asked, shaking his head a little.

"Well, I mean, I think Celandine could take you. I think she could defend herself from you."

"So could you, Pippin. What has that ever got to do with anything?"

"Plenty, when we're talking about Celandine. Ah—have you—you appear to have calmed down a bit."

"This isn't calm. It's shock." Merry sagged against the wall, oblivious to the crunch of broken glass beneath his tough hobbit feet. "Estella's in no condition to go anywhere. I'd like to blame her mood on baby blues, but we're short a baby. Ah, Pippin, this is hard on me, too, you know."

"Um…"

"Eldarion won't let her ride, surely," Merry said, staring past Pippin now, lost in his own thoughts. "Or walk, at least not all the way out of Buckland. She can stay here when the rest of us go to Bree to deliver the Prince back to the King. Maybe she'll feel better by the time I get back."

"M—"

Merry looked back at Pippin, and his face went hard again. "You just keep any further advice on that subject to yourself, Pip."

"I can't help it! You did this to me!"

This time Merry's fragile self-control cracked. He took Pippin by the shoulder, turned him and pushed him into the wall, in an oddly slow manner. Pippin leaned back to avoid planting his nose on the wall, and the burns on his chest connected with the paneling. Pippin hissed inwards in anticipation of pain, but instead he felt a flash of pleasure. And that scared him.

Merry leaned into his back, applying pressure to Pippin's rump. This time Pippin had to choke back a scream, as his tortured insides were squeezed between Merry and the wall. Pippin whimpered, but he did not resist.

Merry purred, "You want me to hurt you, don't you?"

"Yes," Pippin said. "Oh, for the Valar's sake, Merry, don't ask me things."

"Well, I will. I will hurt you. Tomorrow. Tomorrow you're going to be begging for mercy by the second hour. Do you know what I'm going to make you do tomorrow, Pippin?"

"Ride," Pippin replied. "Damn this gift. What in Middle-earth are you—Tell me. Or don't, as you wish."

"Tomorrow, Pippin, you and I are going to ride. We're going to ride all the way to Stock. I can't wait any longer. This Ring will destroy us all. It's working woe to everyone it comes near." Merry eased off and stepped away. "Today it got itself into the hands of children. Who know what it'll do next? It's time to destroy the Ring. Turn around, Pippin."

Pippin obediently turned and looked at Merry.

"We are going to destroy it. You and I. I need your help. Everything else will work itself out, once that evil is gone from the Shire." Merry set a hand gently on Pippin's shoulder. "Tomorrow we ride."

End of Chapter Twenty


	21. Chapter 21

Passing for Underhill Chapter Twenty-One

It took three tries for Pippin to get on the pony. When he finally managed to plant his seat, he shrieked, startling the beast, and it threw him.

"Pippin!" Merry dismounted and ran over to him as he lay in the dust. "Are you alright?"

"No. I wasn't alright before I tried to get into the saddle, Merry. I can't do this."

"Nothing broken?"

"Nothing broken," Pippin sighed. He creaked to his feet and dusted himself off. He was dressed to kill, in the black uniform of the Tower Guard of Minas Tirith, with the barrow-blade once again in its scabbard. But he moved like an arthritic old miracle-seeker.

"I'm sorry," Merry said. "I shouldn't've asked you to try to ride. Eldarion said it was too soon. But I need you to come with me. I'll have someone get a cart."

There were plenty of 'someones' from which to choose. Half the inhabitants of the Hall had come out to see them off, not just Brandybucks but the servants as well. Merry reflected that someone must have told Melilot what they planned to do.

Sam, the third member of the expedition, got down from his pony. He walked over to his children, to pass the time while a cart was found and brought around. All his youngsters were there except Frodo Gardner. Sam wondered what the lad was up to, but it was just as well he stayed away from the Ring-bearer. Eldarion was also missing from the crowd in front of the Hall. Sam hoped that meant the two were together, doing something fun, innocent, and age-appropriate. Eldarion had spent most of his time in the Shire among the adults, in accordance with his disguise.

Diamond carried Faramir over to Pippin and inquired as to his health.

"I am in pain, thank you," Pippin replied. "Gah, Diamond, I hate being a soothsayer."

Berilac told Merry that someone had already taken out the cart this morning. Merry was just considering sending the children away before informing Pippin, to spare their ears the inevitable swearing, when the Brandybuck cart came around the bend, driven by Eldarion.

He pulled up in front of the Hall, speaking to the cart-horse in Elvish. "As you are resolved on going today to Stock, I shall of course accompany my patient. I have had a pallet set for you."

"Hey, now wait a minute!" Pippin protested. "Nobody said you were coming along."

"Pippin, you are a soothsayer, but I have the gift of foresight. It is common, in my line, from both sides. I have something to do before the end."

Taken aback, Pippin did not respond.

Elanor came forward from the crowd, batted her eyelashes at Eldarion, and cooed, "You make a fine drover. Animals love you."

"Ah, thank you," Eldarion said awkwardly. His nearly half elven genetics and consequent slow rate of growth meant that at 13, he was not quite ready to flirt with girls.

Merry and Sam remounted their ponies. Pippin stood looking dubiously at the cart. "Yes, yes, you're doing a fine job with the horse, but can't you ride one of the ponies, and let someone else drive?"

Merry rolled his eyes. "I can't believe you still resent Eldarion for saving your life."

"I don't," Pippin claimed. That was the truth, too, he reflected. He resented Eldarion for touching him and penetrating him without his permission. Pippin congratulated himself on becoming clever about getting around his soothsayer's gift.

"Then get in the cart, Pip," Merry ordered curtly.

Pippin sighed and climbed into the cart. He did not lie on the pallet, but knelt on it, and waved to Diamond in as jaunty a fashion as he could manage.

Merry patted his pocket before starting off down the road. It was empty. He had one very bad moment, suspecting everyone of taking it: Pippin, Frodo-lad, little Faramir, Berilac, Celandine, Estella, Sam, Meli, and assorted wildlife. Then he remembered he had rummaged in Estella's jewelry box for a chain, and now had it around his neck like Frodo Baggins. Merry put his hand over his heart, and touched the Ring on its chain beneath his white shirt and yellow waistcoat.

Then he spurred his pony, and the Travelers moved off down the road.

The spectators dispersed. As soon as Diamond set him down, Fairy bounded away toward the copse in back of the lawn. There he found Frodo Gardner with a pony, saddled and standing ready. Faramir-lad reached up his arms, and Frodo set him on the pony's back, and then climbed up behind. Without a word, they sped away.

The boys kept to the trees, making detours away from the road when necessary, to stay out of sight. Frodo-lad trotted the pony the whole way. He wanted to gallop it, but knew the pony would not last if he did, much as he was tempted to try to ride like the wind. "I don't know why I'm doing this," Frodo-lad grumbled. "I was still red and puffy at bed-time last night, and when we catch up with them, my dad's going to give it to me so bad I'm not going to be able to ride back."

"We can't let them ruin such a Beautiful Thing," Fairy said.

"What can we do?" Frodo asked. "They're the Travelers. They've fought in real wars. Merry and Pippin were wearing swords when they left. Eldarion might not fight, but even if he doesn't, it's still three of them to two of us, and I don't think you'll be of much help in a brawl, not for another ten years yet anyhow."

"We have to stop them," Fairy said. "Just let me get my hands on the Beautiful Thing and everything will be alright. He told me so."

"Who?"

"The wizard. I can hear him in my head. Ever since I put on the Ring."

"That's creepy, Fairy."

"I like him! He's nice. He says I can save you. And everybody else, too. I can make all dads like my dad. Nobody ever needs to get hurt again."

"Oh, Fairy. You're doing this for me?"

"For you and all your brothers and sisters, too. And all the children in the Shire. The wizard says when I'm the Chief, all children will be loved and given lots of cake and pie and nobody will ever be spanked, not even if they start a fire."

"I love you, Fairy!" Frodo gave his friend an extra squeeze around the middle, where he was holding him to keep him on the pony, since Faramir's short legs did not reach the stirrups. Frodo-lad had the pony's reins in his other hand.

They raced to their selected ambush spot, tethered the pony in a grassy meadow out of sight of the road, and climbed a tree that overhung the roadway. Then they waited. They passed a water-bottle back and forth, and munched on some roasted squash seeds. Presently the clip-clop of hooves and the clatter of a cart announced the arrival of the party bound for Stock.

When the lead pony was directly beneath the branch, Fairy whispered, "Now!" and they both dropped out of the tree onto Merry.

End of Chapter 21


	22. Chapter 22

Passing for Underhill Chapter Twenty Two

A weight dropped onto the pony's flank, and it reared. Then another weight dropped, and something was tearing at Merry's neck. He nearly flung his tiny opponent onto the ground before he realized who was attacking him.

"Faramir! Of all the—Pippin! Help!" Merry tried to hold the crazed child out at arm's length while simultaneously getting back control of the frightened pony and fending off the hand from behind that was trying to reach into his pocket.

"Empty!" Frodo-lad snarled.

"You two, come collect your sons!" Merry called.

Then the fight turned serious as young Frodo abandoned the turned-out pockets and drew Merry's sword. Merry elbowed him, but could not turn around fast enough with his hands full of Faramir, and the reins of the pony, both bucking and kicking.

Pippin urged Eldarion, "Drive the cart up next to them! Bring me level with them!"

Frodo-lad grabbed Merry's hair and yanked his head back, and put the blade to his throat.

"Hold," Frodo-lad commanded, using Saruman's example.

The pony danced beneath them, and a line of blood opened at Merry's neck. Slowly, Merry set Faramir-lad down on the pony's shoulders. The small child snaked a hand below the sword and pulled the Ring from around Merry's neck.

Sam maneuvered his pony up next to Frodo-lad. Sam's sword was in his hand, but he seemed to be unsure of exactly what to do with it. "Let him go, lad."

Faramir put on the Ring. Immediately he was engulfed in the shadow-world, but he was not frightened by the insubstantiality of things, nor the light that came from the Travelers. The wizard's voice had told him that he could see into the shadow world, but he wasn't really in it, when he had on the Beautiful Thing; that was why he didn't turn invisible when he had it on.

"Mine, mine!" Fairy crowed. "I'm the Boss now, and everybody has to do what I say! Let go of me, Master Brandybuck."

It was not the Voice, but Merry let go. Frodo-lad still had Merry's own sword at his throat.

Faramir clung to the pommel and got his legs over the pony's neck, facing toward Merry and Frodo. The pony was calming down, but it still shied as the cart clattered up next to it. Pippin made an unsuccessful grab at Faramir, and the pony bucked again, resulting in a fresh flow of blood from Merry's neck.

"Stop," Merry said. "Stop trying to help. I don't think he means to kill me, but he could do it by accident if the pony takes fright again."

"What are you thinking, Frodo-lad?" Sam asked. "Put that sword down right now!"

"No," Faramir-lad said. "Not yet. Not until everybody agrees that I'm the new Chief. I have the Ring, yes, yes, my Beautiful Thing, and the power is mine now. Swear to serve me and I'll have my lieutenant let you go, Master of Buckland."

Merry could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Surely these ideas came from the Ring of Saruman, not from a six year old's own head. "You're nuttier than an almond orchard. Whatever the Ring has promised you, it's lying, Faramir-lad. It promised me power, too. When it called to me. What it's given me is a dratted nuisance."

"Good, I'm glad you don't want it anymore, because I do. It's mine now. My own, my Beautiful Thing, my precious."

"No, Frodo! Faramir!" Sam cried. "It's evil!"

Fairy pointed at Sam, with his Ring-hand, and intoned, "You will never hurt my dear Frodo again." This was not the Voice, either, although Faramir-lad clearly intended it to be a spell of command. The boy had not yet learned to wield the power of the Ring at will.

Sam looked stricken.

"Valar defend us," Pippin croaked. "The mind boggles. You're the leader of this pair, Faramir-lad?"

"I am now," the boy responded. "I'm going to be the Chief, and the Boss, and the Shire will be mine. The Shire will be only the beginning!"

"Do you see armies, son?" Pippin asked, in an oddly flat, thoughtful tone. "Vast realms? Men flocking to your banner?"

"Yes, all those things, and more."

"I named you after the wrong brother."

"Hello, bleeding here," said Merry. "I don't think insulting him's going to help, Pip. Though maybe he doesn't understand it."

"I do," Frodo-lad said, pulling back on Merry's curls, stretching his neck even further. The hand with the sword never wavered.

"Promise to follow me and he'll let you live," Fairy said. "Promise!" This time Faramir-lad succeeded in invoking the Voice.

Merry felt its hold on his soul. Carrying the Ring of Saruman had left him vulnerable to its power. But he still had a will of his own. Somehow he had to make the child behind him lower his sword; after that, he could get the Ring back. His Beautiful Thing. His own.

"I promise," Merry said.

"No!" Pippin yelled. "Resist it!"

"And the rest of you," Fairy said. "All of you have to promise, too. Promise to me you'll follow me and do what I say, because I'm the Chief. Then Frodo will let the Brandybuck go."

"Please, do it," Merry said, "all of you. I think Frodo-lad's spellbound. I think he'll really cut my throat!"

"I promise," Eldarion said.

"Frodo-lad, let him go," Sam said. "No hobbit has ever killed another on purpose."

"No, but you sure go halfway a lot!" Frodo said. "I'm not enchanted. Leastwise, I don't know if I am. But if I am, so what? Fairy's doing this for me! And all the children of the Shire. We're taking over, and nobody's going to hurt us ever again! You think you have the right to hit us just because we're smaller than you are! Well, we children have the power now."

"Frodo-lad," Sam reasoned, "you know I discipline you because I love you, and I want you to turn out well. Once you're grown up, you'll have to know right from wrong and fit into the community, or you could end up being shunned. Or worse, even banished. I don't want that to happen to you. It's my job to see you turn out right."

Fairy said, "There's more than one right and wrong. There's the Took way and the Gamgee way. There's the Shire way and the Rivendell way. And I'm standing up for the Took way. From now on, pick on someone your own size. Like Master Brandybuck does."

Merry blushed, but said nothing.

"Oh, kh—Oh no," Pippin said. "I don't dare ask how much you know about that, or how you found it out. Faramir, darling son, I actually admire your attempt to bring nonviolence to the Shire, but holding a sword at someone's neck isn't the way to do it."

"Somebody has to do something," Fairy said. "And with the Beautiful Thing, I can do anything!"

"It's using you, Faramir," Pippin said. "All it wants is to save itself from the fire. It used Merry when it first woke up, and now it's using you instead. Sooner or later it'll betray you too, and go use someone else."

"No, the Beautiful Thing is mine! And the wizard is my friend."

"What wizard?" Pippin asked. Then he felt the terrible compulsion of the soothsayer's gift, and answered his own question. "Saruman. But he's dead." Pippin's tone grew soft. "It talks to you. The Ring does. It calls to you. I understand."

"Promise," Fairy said again. "You two promise to follow me, and we'll all go change the world. Everything will be perfect from now on. Sunshine will be brighter, flowers will grow by themselves, candy will rain from the sky. All because I command it. No one will get hurt, and everyone will be happy. The power of the Ring can give us that!"

"No, it can't, lad. And I can't promise, because I'm a soothsayer. I can't lie to you, ever. The Ring won't make the Shire a utopia. It was forged in evil, to rival the Dark Lord. If you grow up wearing it, and wielding it, you won't even be a hobbit by the time you're grown. And you'll have forgotten all about flowers, and sunshine, and protecting other children. The Darkness will live in you forever. I'm sorry to have to tell you these things. You're too young for this knowledge. But you've got to let it go, or you'll know more of these things than I."

Fairy started crying. "The wizard said he was my friend."

"The wizard can lie. I can't."

"He said nobody would get hurt."

"Look right in front of you, Faramir. Your friend's got blood on his hands. Stop this, now, before he takes a life. You don't want to make Frodo into a murderer."

"No," Faramir-lad sniffled. "All I really wanted was for Frodo's dad to be like you."

"That's sweet, Faramir-lad. I love you too. Tell Frodo to put down the sword."

Fairy nodded. "It's over, Frodo. I'm sorry. Let him go."

"But Fairy," Frodo-lad protested. "They'll hurt me."

"I'm s-s-sorry," Faramir bawled. "I'm sorry I made you bring me here. I'm sorry I failed."

"Don't give up, Fairy. You still have the Ring."

Faramir took the Ring off. Immediately, the sunshine was brighter. He realized the wizard had indeed been lying about sunlight, and about everything else too.

"No," Frodo begged. "Don't give it up. Don't let me down. You have to protect me, Fairy. I don't have enough skin to pay for what I'm doing right now." Frodo-lad relaxed his grip on Merry's hair, but did not lower the sword. "I've cut him. I've never hurt anyone like that before. Save me, Fairy!"

Fairy wiped his nose on his sleeve and sobbed, "I'm sorry."

"Frodo-lad," Pippin said, "what if we were to promise that you would receive the same punishment as Faramir, would you feel safe enough to let go of the sword?"

"Pippin…" Sam tried to interrupt.

"Trust me, Sam," Pippin said. "I know what I'm doing."

"Yes, Sam, please," Merry said. "What he's doing is negotiating for my life."

"Alright," Sam said grudgingly. "I promise that. Let him go, Frodo-lad."

Frodo lowered the sword. Merry took it away from him. Frodo-lad swung off the pony and stood in the road, looking defeated.

Merry carefully took the Ring from Faramir. The chain was broken, so Merry put the Ring of Saruman back in his pocket. Then he picked the sobbing child up and handed him to Pippin.

"Oof. You're getting heavy, Faramir-lad." Pippin set the boy down in the cart beside him. "Now, you boys didn't fly here. You two will lead Sam and I to your pony while Eldarion tends to Merry's wound."

No one said a word while they went and returned with the pony. When they came back, Merry was holding a folded bandage to his neck.

"Now," said Pippin, "I know you boys hear the call of the Ring. Or, at least Faramir does. I know very well how hard it is to resist such things, so I won't ask you to try. Sam, you're motto has always been 'no harm in being prepared', so I'm hoping you've stashed your elven rope in your saddle-bag."

"I have it," Sam said. "Are you going to tie the boys up?"

"No, you are. Because you're going back with them, and I'm going on with Merry and Eldarion. This cursed Ring has got to be destroyed, and I'm going to see it done."

Sam nodded. "Right-ho." He dug out the silken, grey rope. "Up on the pony, lads. I'm going to tie you to the saddle until we get back to the Hall."

The boys, with subdued sniffles, allowed themselves to have their hands tied to the saddle horn.

"Think not ill of your parents for this," Eldarion advised the children. "A Ring of Power has a will of its own. You would follow, had you the chance. As you have proven already."

Frodo-lad nodded his understanding, but Fairy started crying in earnest again. The younger boy wailed, "My Beautiful Thing! My Beautiful Thing!"

"And then what?" Sam asked. "When we get there, I mean. You clearly had something in mind, earlier."

Pippin sighed. "What I had in mind was a trick."

Faramir whined, "Mustn't hurt Beautiful."

"I figured that. That soothsayer thing, it's quite literal. You implied that we were promising Frodo-lad he wouldn't get a beating, but you didn't actually say so. Just that they'd be treated the same."

Young Frodo's head came up, eyes wide in horror. "No," he whispered. "You wouldn't." Then, louder, "You wouldn't! Not you! You're The Took, you don't do that! You don't believe in it! Everybody knows that!"

"Whoa, Pippin," Merry said. "It's my neck, right? I don't want this."

"I don't want it, either, Merry! But I can't imagine just sending them to their rooms for this. Not for this! I'd have to keep them locked up for a year to even come close, and the Hall isn't their home. This is far beyond naughty, and into criminal." Pippin turned away, his gaze unfocusing. "Very nearly into Carl Digwell territory, in fact."

"Whom you forgave, mostly," Merry said. "Because of Saruman's influence. The call of his Ring is just as compelling. You know this."

"I know it," Pippin said quietly.

"Mustn't hurt Precious," Fairy mumbled.

"As witness," Merry gestured toward little Faramir.

"I heard," Pippin said. "So what do you propose?"

"I suppose it would be impractical to say they each owe me a cow?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Pippin couldn't help but give in to a lopsided grin of irony, for a moment. "Faramir might not even remember this whole year of his life by the time he's old enough to acquire one."

"I suppose not," Merry agreed. "I have a better idea. There's a great swath of very boring lawn in front of Brandy Hall. Full of dandelions."

Pippin actually laughed. "Oh, Merry. That lawn's three miles long!" Pippin looked up at the boys. "What do you say, Frodo Gardner? Care to live up to your name?" Then Pippin covered his mouth so that he would not answer his own question.

The child looked pathetically grateful. "It'll be the best lawn in the Shire when we're done."

Oblivious to the deal-making over his young hide, Fairy whispered, "My Beautiful Thing. My Beautiful Thing. My Precious."

End of Chapter Twenty Two


	23. Chapter 23

Passing for Underhill Chapter Twenty Three

The smithy in Stock was mostly a blacksmith shop. Horseshoes and nails were the smith's bread and butter. But he was an artist at heart, and occasionally dabbled in the finer metals, mostly for gifts for his wife.

Renny Smith heated up his casting cauldron for the gentlehobbits. It was large enough to melt the iron to cast a series of pans. Today there was some gold in it, and the tiniest bit of copper, to make red gold. The Ring of Saruman was destined to be turned into a brooch, but only after it had been melted, to kill its magic, diluted with other gold, to make sure the magic was really dead, and adulterated with copper, so that it could never be remade.

Then, at Merry's word, Renny went outside and allowed the Thain and the Master to perform whatever esoteric ritual they were about to use to destroy the might of Saruman, in private. Eldarion waited outside too, next to the cart and animals.

There was no ritual, however. Merry stood before the forge, hand outstretched over the cauldron. He stood like that for a very long time.

"I can't let go," he said at last.

"I didn't expect you to," Pippin said.

"Now what?"

Pippin clamped his hands over his mouth.

"Pippin, if you have a plan, out with it."

"Do you trust me, Merry?" Pippin immediately covered his mouth again, to wait for Merry's reply.

"That's a singularly ominous thing to ask me right now, Pippin."

"I've given the subject of how one might get rid of a Ring of Power a lot of thought."

"Yes, and?"

"I'm afraid it's really quite impossible for you to throw it in the fire voluntarily. And no one can take it from you and then toss it in themselves, because then he would have it, and he couldn't destroy it either."

Merry lowered his hand and sighed. "Is it hopeless, then?"

"Of course not. There's no handy Gollum about at the moment, and I shudder to think what might have happened if the boys had caught up with us here, instead of on the road. And the cauldron is a little small for the obvious solution at the Mountain. Not that I'd recommend that anyway."

"Make sense, Pippin."

"You probably don't want to know what the solution is."

"Yes I do! I want to destroy it! For a while I thought it was the answer to my prayers, and after that, I really thought for a while that its power had saved Estella, but I realize now that the only power of healing was Eldarion's, and I only supplied a familiar voice. This thing is wrecking our lives, not saving them. I nearly had my throat slit today, and the Valar know what sort of damage has been done to the boys' souls. Not to mention that I actually did promise. Pippin, it was bad enough to be—never mind."

"That promise disturbs you more than the threat to your life that prompted it," Pippin said.

"Yes, it does," Merry answered, reading a question into Pippin's carefully non-questioning wording and tone. "Pippin—I just got topped by your six year old son."

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Pippin's mouth quirked in amusement.

"It's not funny, Pip."

"What's not funny is that it's hot in here, and things are glowing, dammit, and I want out of here as quickly as we can. So do you trust me, Merry?" Again, Pippin stifled his self-reply.

Merry sighed. "Yes. Yes, I do."

"Then hold the ring out over the cauldron and close your eyes."

"Oh, Pippin, that sounds frightening."

"If you have another idea, now's the time."

Merry held his hand out over the smelter, but clutched the Ring tight in his fist. He could not relax his hand. After a few moments, he closed his eyes. He was afraid Pippin was going to pry his hand open trying to make the Ring fall, and would end up holding it in his own hand and being ensnared by it, and would take it for his own.

Then he heard the unmistakable sound of a sword being drawn. His eyes snapped open. "What are you doing?"

"Stay still for me, Merry."

Merry's face contorted and his lips quivered. Tears sprang from his eyes. He held his shaking hand over the cauldron.

With one swift stroke, Pippin cut off his hand.

The Ring tumbled into the cauldron. Merry shrieked and clutched his stump, which spurted blood all over the smithy. The empty hand fell to the ground near the smelter.

In the cauldron, the Ring of Saruman melted down. It spread and mixed with the other liquid metal, and one last unearthly sigh of despair came from the Voice. Then it was over. The molten gold was quiet. No towers fell, no volcano erupted. Only a sigh.

But Merry was squealing like a hog at the slaughter. Eldarion and Mr. Smith ran inside. Mr. Smith halted in shock, but Eldarion picked up the severed hand at once, and said, "Get him outside. You, Smith, bring hot water. I will heal him."

Mr. Smith brought boiling water at once, having a ready supply of extreme heat. Eldarion brought leaves of athelas out of his bag, mumbled to them, breathed on them, and then cast them into the water. He cleaned the stump and the hand, ignoring Merry's screams, and disinfected metal instruments from his bag in the boiling water.

Eldarion clamped the spurting artery. Then he produced a spool of black silk thread. Merry swooned, and knew no more.

End of Chapter Twenty Three


	24. Chapter 24

Passing for Underhill Chapter Twenty Four

"Here you go, lads," Sam said, placing a big, floppy straw hat on each curly head. "Sack and spade for each of you. Knife for you, Frodo-lad, and don't let little Faramir use it. Help him if he's got a big root to deal with."

"I will," Frodo promised. He swelled with pride at the show of confidence his father placed in him by letting him use the weeding knife, after his less than responsible performance with edged weaponry that morning.

"Now boys, if I catch you goofing off instead of weeding, I'll make you do your chore with your shirts off. There's more than one way to tan your hides."

Frodo Gardner bit his lip to keep from smiling at the pun. He tried his best to look serious. Sunburn was really not much of a threat to a pair of boys who had spent all summer swimming in the nude.

"Understand me, boys?"

Frodo nodded. Faramir stared blankly into space.

"Faramir-lad? Understand?"

The child's unblinking gaze was a bit disturbing. Sam wondered about the wisdom of dealing with Ring-lust as if it were ordinary mischief. He was committed to this course, now, though. He and Merry and Pippin had all agreed on it, and it might not be a good idea to try to change the plan now. If little Faramir were truly caught in the darkness of the Ring's pull, sitting outside in the pleasant autumn sunshine with his best friend was surely the most healthy thing for him, even if it was styled as a punishment.

"Alright, get to it then. And remember, I'll be checking on you. Start on the south side."

Frodo-lad started walking to the south end of the lawn. Then he realized Faramir was still staring straight ahead, and picked him up along with the sacks of tools, and carried him. He set him down in a patch of green grass studded with tiny yellow flowers, and the occasional larger yellow dandelion. Frodo-lad wrapped the smaller boy's hand around a trowel.

Frodo Gardner pulled a few weeds, putting them in his sack. Faramir-lad just sat there.

"Try to look busy, Fairy, or you'll get in trouble."

Young Frodo pulled a few more weeds, then gave Faramir a poke in the arm. Fairy did not respond, so he lifted up his hat and slapped the back of his head, like he had seen Master Brandybuck do to Fairy's daddy. Faramir-lad blinked and looked around.

"Glad you're back," Frodo-lad sat, repositioning Fairy's straw hat.

"Where did I go?"

"Don't know. What did it look like?"

Faramir shrugged. "I think it's gone. I can't hear the wizard anymore. I've listened and listened, and I can't hear him. The Beautiful Thing is gone. My Beautiful Thing. My Precious." Faramir started to cry.

"Don't cry, Fairy. You got what we wanted. Ring or no, you did it. You got my dad to agree not to spank me. At least, not this time." Frodo-lad's expression darkened. "If we're really, really good for a while, maybe next time he'll decide this works better." The words were hopeful, but Frodo-lad dreaded his next encounter with his father's hand or belt. He was supposed to, he knew. That was supposed to keep him from being bad. But Frodo-lad was exactly the same age as Eldarion, and Eldarion had been raised the Elven way, like Fairy, and Eldarion wasn't ever bad. "When I grow up, I'm going to be like The Took. And the King."

"Me too," Fairy sniffled, wiping away his tears. He pulled up a dandelion, and started nibbling on the dandelion greens.

"Eww, aren't those bitter?"

"I like them. Hey, do you hear that?" Faramir stood up and dropped the miniature spade. He bolted into the woods.

"Fairy!" Frodo-lad was torn. He wanted to go after him, but he didn't want his father to look out a window and see them both gone. Which would get him in more trouble: not doing as he was told, or letting Fairy run off? Frodo abandoned his weeding and charged into the treeline. Faramir was nowhere in sight. "Fairy! Oh, no. I hesitated too long."

He went back out and started pulling up dandelions with a will. Nothing was fair, and he could never do anything right, and Faramir depended on him and now he was gone. Frodo-lad took out his frustrations on the weeds.

Should he go to the Hall and tell someone—Mrs. Took, perhaps—that Faramir had run away? But what if he hadn't run away? What if he was just playing in the woods, and would come back soon? Then he'd have gotten little Fairy in terrible trouble. Fairy's mother would just send little Faramir to his room, but Frodo-lad's own father seemed to be in charge of them both just now, and he had no doubt that if 'goofing off' was worth the very slight risk of a blistered backside from the sun, then running away would surely be worth the real thing. Poor little Fairy was already upset enough, without Frodo tattling on him.

Frodo-lad heaved a huge sigh of relief when Fairy appeared from the woodland. Now he could hear what Faramir-lad had heard: mewing. Fairy had a kitten held against his heart with both hands.

Frodo-lad said, "Aw, you found a kitten. Was there more than one out there?"

"Just the one kitty," Fairy replied. He stroked its gray fur, and it responded by kneading him.

"It looks like it's just the right age to be adopted," Frodo-lad observed. A neighbor boy's cat had had kittens last year, and this one was about the same size as those had been when they were given away.

Faramir petted the kitten while Frodo-lad went back to weeding. Goldilocks came out to them with a pitcher of water. She offered it to Fairy first, shyly, then to her brother as an afterthought.

"Kitty?" Goldie asked.

Faramir handed her the kitten, who struggled briefly at being held over a drop, then settled down when Goldie slipped the kitten into her bodice.

"Goldie, will you marry me?"

"Yes."

End of Chapter Twenty Four


	25. Chapter 25

Passing for Underhill Chapter Twenty Five

Merry woke up in a strange bed. It was large, meant for a whole group of people, and Merry realized he must be at an inn. With a sudden stab of fear, he remembered his hand being cut off, and looked down.

His arm was in a sling, bound tightly to his chest. A hand protruded from the end of the sling. Merry carefully moved a finger. It responded. He let his head fall back onto the pillow and cried tears of relief.

He heard people talking in the next room, Pippin and a female voice, but could not make out what they were saying. He fell asleep again.

When he woke up the second time, Pippin was sitting in a chair by the window, talking in hushed tones with Pearl, his oldest sister. Merry stirred. "Hey, Pip," he whispered. His voice cracked with disuse. "Does this inn have anything to drink in it?"

Pippin rushed to his side, made as if to help him up, but then hesitated. "Merry, are you—that is—"

"He's trying to ask if you want someone else to help you," Pearl interpreted. "Egads, but he's been walking on eggshells. And here I thought I was coming out to Buckland to fuss over him!"

Merry tried to gesture Pippin to him, realized what a bad idea it was to attempt to move his hand, and settled for whispering, "There's no one else I'd want to look after me right now."

Pippin smiled a little and helped Merry sit up, and gave him some water. "It's tomorrow, in case you were wondering. Eldarion says you can ride home with me in the cart whenever you've a mind to, as long as you don't try to use your hand for a while there's no reason you can't travel."

"Home. Yes." Merry's voice grew stronger after wetting his whistle. "You say his name without rancor, now," Merry observed.

"I watched him sew your hand back on. He really is a Miracle Worker."

"And a man of foresight," Merry agreed. "Pippin—just checking—"

"The Ring is destroyed."

"And what happened to the lump of gold?"

The door opened, and Eldarion came in with a tray.

"Looks like you're about to see," Pippin said. He gestured to a brooch of red gold, shaped like an athelas leaf and adorned with a single, tiny white stone like a dewdrop. The casting would never be mistaken for work of elven craft, but Eldarion wore it like a crown jewel. "Mr. Smith named it the Miracle Pin."

As Eldarion passed him, Pippin realized that Eldarion was taller than he was, now. It was somewhat disconcerting, since he had almost started to think of him as a fellow hobbit.

Eldarion set down the tray, which proved to contain bread and butter, and half a ripe cheese. "The house-wife sent up elevenses. How are you feeling, Merry?"

"Remarkably good, considering. Did you give me something for the pain?"

"Only athelas, in topical application. The effect will not last, so let me know when you need an analgesic. I have not the skill to make the stronger preparations, for my father will not teach me anything dangerous until I am of age. But there are some comforts I know which may ease you."

"I didn't think Aragorn was a surgeon. Did he teach you to sew lost limbs back on?"

Before Eldarion could answer, Pippin popped out with, "He learned from Gondor's field surgeons and old books of Elrond's. Oh no! The soothsayer gift! The spell survived the destruction of the Ring!"

Merry's face tightened. "If you're still a soothsayer… am I still a follower of little Faramir?"

"Kh—" Pippin cut off the expletive. "Only one way to find out. But the commands of the Voice are very literal. I think, if it was going to work on you at all, you would have turned your pony and followed Faramir when the boys rode off with Sam. Following, you see."

"Maybe. Still, I think the first time I meet your son again, I'd rather not have all of Brandy Hall as an audience. I hate being feared, but I can live with that better than being ridiculed."

"I can understand that," Pippin nodded. "Those times when Gandalf called me 'fool of a Took' cut me worse than any whip."

Merry looked away.

"Well, if that's not gloomy talk!" Pearl exclaimed. "You defeated Saruman, again, and destroyed his Ring. Be happy! You're heroes. Everybody in the Shire is going to be talking about it."

"What, that I—" Pippin bit back whatever he was going to say.

"You should be glad, Pip," Pearl said, suddenly serious. "This will drive out all the other gossip. The tale that brought me racing out to Buckland to comfort you, among them."

To cover his embarrassment, Pippin started slicing and buttering the bread, and handing it out. He reached for the cheese, but Eldarion caught his arm. "That's not for you."

"Kherekh burzum!" Pippin could not contain himself this time. "How long until I can eat normally again?"

"A week at least, perhaps longer."

"A week?!"

"I guess, Pippin. It is better to err on the side of caution. I would predict with more confidence, were you to allow me to examine you."

Pippin made an inarticulate noise and tore at his hair. Pearl tried to stop him, but he shook her off. "Don't, don't, don't, just don't, Pearl." Then he stalked out and slammed the door.

Pippin's oldest sister shook her head. "He's not near right, yet. And not only in the gut."

"Only time will heal both, I fear," Eldarion said. "Though I could treat him again, if he would let me, it is not critical. He will live, with or without further healing, so he keeps to the dietary restrictions for a time."

"How about my hand?" Merry asked. "How long will this take to heal?"

"A month at least, I should think. The bone was cut clean in two. In one of the race of Men, I would cast it for at least half a year. You Halfling folk recover far more quickly, however, and I shall not be here in a moon's time to cut the cast away, so I have only splinted and anchored it. Do move your fingers, to maintain flexibility, but do not try to use your hand at all this week. After that, if it does not pain you to do so, you may begin to hold small things, briefly. Let your pain be your guide, since my time here runs short."

Later that day, Merry and Pippin rode in the cart, while Eldarion drove it. Pearl rode on her miniature palfrey, leading the other pony. The Miracle Pin shone on Eldarion's hobbit style vest. They rode slowly, and reached Brandy Hall at dusk.

Eldarion helped Merry to his guest room, where he found Estella waiting for him, to his great relief.

Pippin likewise found Diamond in the Took Suite. She was applying cold cloths to Fairy's red back. Pippin stopped in the doorway and sagged against it. "What happened to you?!" Then the terrible compulsion of the soothsayer gift came over him and he answered, "Sam caught you playing with a kitten instead of digging weeds, and made you—" Pippin clamped his hand over his mouth in horror. He knew what he was about to say.

The soothsayer gift was not only still with him, it was even stronger. Now he could see the scene in front of him, all complete. It was completely innocent; and yet it lanced through his heart. He saw Sam pulling little Faramir to his feet. The boy was wearing a very silly hat. Pippin heard Sam say, 'What did I tell you boys about goofing off?' and he watched five year old Goldi stuffing the kitten down her dress and running back to the Hall.

Pippin slid down the doorframe and crumpled to the floor. Now he was having visions! "This is the last straw. This is just the last damned straw."

Diamond flew to him when he fell to the ground. She hugged him, and little Faramir padded over and hugged him, too.

"Don't be sad, daddy," Fairy said. "It was worth it. I found a kitten in the woods and gave it to Goldie, and I asked her to marry me and she said yes."

Pippin was quite diverted from his self-pity by this startling statement. "Faramir-lad, aren't you a little young to be courting girls?"

"Just one girl, daddy."

Pippin smiled in spite of himself. "Well, you could do worse, I suppose. And what an enchanting new tradition you've started: the engagement kitten."

Diamond grinned. "Now why didn't we think of that?"

"Too wrapped up in other concerns?" Pippin asked.

Diamond blushed and grinned even wider. She leaned in to kiss her husband, and this time, for the first time since the kidnapping, Pippin returned the kiss with enthusiasm.

"Hey, you two, I'm still here," Faramir objected.

"So you are. And I think your mother still has a little work to do, am I right, Di?"

She sighed. "Yes. He was out all day. I wouldn't've thought he could really sunburn after all the time he's spent outside this summer, but at least he's not going to peel."

"Right. Have you two eaten?"

"Yes, not an hour ago."

"I'll leave you to your work, then. I'm off in search of the kitchens."

While Merry and Pippin returned to their guest rooms, Celandine found a room for Pearl. She caught pumped Pearl for information on the destruction of the Ring, and then caught Pearl up on the latest gossip of Brandy Hall, which was the minor matter of the dandelion covenant.

Pearl clucked her tongue and shook her head when she heard about the children's engagement. "Wonder if that'll stand? The two families are great friends, of course, but really, the Gamgees are not our class, no matter the inheritance from the Bagginses. The Thain's heir really should be matched with gentry."

"Well," Celandine allowed, "at least they're landed. And the Mayor has been made a Councillor of the North Kingdom, right along with the Master of Buckland and the Thain of the Shire, so you might call that a title of nobility, though there was no land grant along with it."

"True," Pearl agreed. "But no need to get myself in a dither over it yet. Faramir has plenty of time to grow up and find a better match. Thirty years at least! So what happened then? I half expected Diamond to be out on the road to greet us, so something must have happened."

"Sam seems to have been directed to take charge of the boys' dandelion slaying adventure, and thought that hunting kittens instead was out of bounds, so he found a clever way to give little Fairy a red sore backside without ever touching him, by taking away his shirt. The sun did the rest."

"What?!" Pearl shrieked. "He took his clothes off and burned him?! Pippin will have a stroke!" Pearl pelted down the corridor. Then she realized she did not know which way Pippin's room was. "Where's my brother? Celandine, take me there!"

Reluctantly, Celandine led the way. "It's not really that bad, Pearl dear. I saw the boy, when he came in. No need to panic."

Pearl would not be derailed until she had seen little Faramir herself. The boy suffered her show of auntly concern stoically. When she had seen it, she agreed the sunburn was fairly mild. She wished Diamond and Faramir good-night, and left with Celandine.

"Well, you were right, dear heart, it was not a bad sunburn. Still, that Sam was thoughtless, after what happened to poor Pip. But what can one expect of the nouveau riche? Just not of gentle mind, that Sam." Pearl shook her head. "I can certainly understand Frodo Baggins wanting to see his loyal servant taken care of after his passing, but really, to leave the whole estate to him! That kind really needs a Master to do his thinking for him."

Celandine bit her tongue. She liked the Gamgees, but she had to agree with Pearl that Sam's choice of penalty for the horseplay with the kitten was a bit inconsiderate under the circumstances. 'Not of gentle mind' really did sum up Sam's personality fairly well.

Two weeks later, with Pippin thankfully eating whatever he pleased again, and Merry's arm at rest in a sling and able to help with two-handed tasks like packing the bowl of a pipe (though Estella still had to button his shirt for him), Pearl packed back off to her own husband and children, and general peace and harmony restored to the residents and guests of Brandy Hall, the Travelers and their families prepared to accompany Eldarion to Bree.

There was much hugging, and a line of Eldarion's cured patients gathered in the road to cheer him on his way. He waved to them in a princely fashion. Then Eldarion the Miracle Worker road off on his low pony into the east.

Along with a large wagon full of Gamgee children, two Tooks and a Brandybuck, driven by Sam. Only Diamond rode on her own pony. Estella stayed behind.

End of Chapter Twenty Five


	26. Chapter 26

Passing for Underhill Chapter Twenty Six

The Inn of the Prancing Pony was packed. Mr. Butterbur was getting on in years, but he had lost none of his bustle. "It's a good thing you're party is of hobbits, Mr. Underhill, or I don't rightly know where I'd put you! All the rooms for the Big Folk are taken up by the King's party, and it's a fair wonder to me still, that Strider the Ranger should up and turn into a King with a Fairy Princess for a wife and a household full of knights in shining armor and whatnot! Not that they arrived so shiny before I had their baths drawn! But right this way, right this way, the hobbit size rooms are right cozy, very homelike the Little Folk tell me! And you'll be wanting supper, I don't doubt. Nob is seeing to your animals, and I'll have his son Hob bring up your luggage. Here you are, a fine sitting room, ring the bell if there's ought you need, and the Common Room's out the corridor to the left if you've a mind for company, but best wash up first, if you please, good Shirefolk, as the King's taken it over for his Court."

With that, Butterbur breezed out and left all and sundry (that would be the hobbits and one pseudo-hobbit) alone in their suite. Following his advice, they washed off the road dust and dressed in their finest before going to the Common Room. Merry and Pippin each wore their old livery and swords. The other hobbits had on traditional hobbit garments of good make, and Elanor and Frodo Gardner each wore their new rabbit skin caps (which made Goldie pout, until Fairy whispered something to her that made her giggle).

Eldarion put aside his disguise and resumed the dress of Men, in royal blue: velvet tunic, silk surcoat, woolen hose, and silk velvet cape, with kidskin shoes and belt, and a soft cap of elven grey. But the only jewelry he wore was the Miracle Pin.

The hobbit party was greeted warmly in the Common Room. Merry ran into Pippin, who had halted suddenly. Merry steered him to a seat, thinking he had gotten distracted with all the hellos and had forgotten to move his feet. But Pippin got up and chose another chair immediately, and not one that looked any more comfortable than the first one. Merry realized that Pippin was sitting to put the inn's wide hearth out of his line of sight, even though it was unlit. Merry's eyes tracked to the dark opening and saw what Pippin must have seen: a fireplace poker.

Merry swallowed hard and looked back at Pippin. His cousin appeared perfectly at ease, nonchalantly greeting various members of the Court. If Merry hadn't twigged to the significance of the seating arrangements, he might have thought Pippin hadn't a care in the world.

The King and Queen hugged Eldarion for a long minute before turning to welcome the hobbits. Pippin tried for a courtly bow (without standing up, which rather spoiled the effect), but Aragorn sprang like a deer across the Common Room, as if he were still a Ranger of many journeys in the prime of his life, and swept the hobbits up in embrace after embrace.

After the initial greetings, Aragorn called for Barliman Butterbur's famous beer, and would not be gainsaid, but insisted on having a tankard served to everyone present, even the children. Then he raised a toast, "To Eldarion's safe return from his adventure in the Shire," and everyone drank his health.

"So," Aragorn addressed Eldarion, "how was paradise?"

"Paradise?" Eldarion replied, startled. "There is only one paradise, my father, and it lies not in Middle Earth. Under the deceptive verdure of the Shire there is tragedy. As in all mortal lands beneath the Sun."

Aragorn's face lost the glow which had lit it for his reunion with his son and friends. "I see there must be some tale in this. But come! We shall listen to tragedies another time. My dear hobbits, Councillors of the North Kingdom, tell me, how did Eldarion fare in your land?"

"He is known as a Miracle Worker throughout the Shire," Merry replied. "He is the finest healer in Middle Earth. Not excepting you, I believe, my lord King."

Aragorn's eyebrows rose. "A story indeed! But I suspected as much already. The blood of Melian runs true in him."

"Merry is generous," Eldarion said. "I could not save everyone."

"No one can do that, my son," Aragorn said gravely. "Those who dwell in Middle Earth have not the power, and the Valar will not interfere, nor allow their servants the Maiar to do so. And who knows the thought of Eru? Not even the Valar, perhaps. Be comforted. I see in your eyes that you grieve for your lost patient, whoever it was. But that is the way of the world."

"The way of mortality," Eldarion corrected. He regarded the Queen. "I am sorry, mother, if I seem to mislike the sadness of the world. It is not a criticism of your choice. Nor would I cast away what I have learned from the hobbits: to be ready in each moment to find solace in simple things, in birdsong and sunshine and good food and cheer, and most especially in one's friends and family. The Shire is subject to every ill that befalls Gondor and the North Kingdom, and the realms of Elvendom on Earth, save one only: the hobbit folk do not despair."

"I hear wisdom from you, Eldarion, and I marvel that you have grown so in your heart, in such a short time."

Arwen said, "Indeed I see elven-wisdom in your eyes, Eldarion. But surely there was more to your journey than healing and learning from tragedy. You have gained fame as a healer, but how fare you as a child?"

"I scarcely know, Mother. The hobbits treat me as an adult. I cannot help but act as such."

Arwen held him in her gaze for a moment, perhaps looking into his mind as her grandmother had been wont to do. Then she nodded, and the talk passed to less serious topics.

At one point in the evening, Aragorn noted Pippin reaching for a piece of cheese, then glancing at Eldarion, flinching, and passing it by. There was certainly a tale to tell there, as well. He looked forward to listening to all of his son's traveler's tales on the journey home to Minas Tirith.

The End


End file.
